Chapter 9 Episode 24: The Dragon Inheritor 2

We once again change gears for a second as Furufumi turns on a flashback to a time Mononobe pointed out one of the stars in the sky and talk about its name and origins as Furufumi says he has been doing every night. Furufumi comments that while some stars look the same, the reason they shined varied.

One star was a lonely shining star that burned everything near it. Despite how big it looked, it was in actuality mostly gas. Another star that stood far away was only the light it gave off long ago, which then reached all the way to Earth. And then he would learn how t lived from far far away. As Furufumi learned more, he took on more of an interest in them. Before long, he started looking forward to those times he spent with Mononobe talking about the stars.

One night as he and Mononobe day together with their books, Furufumi started talking about himself. He talked about his worries that he couldn’t tell anyone else. He talked about the regrets he kept hiding. Mononobe would sit there without saying anything as he listened to him. He didn’t say whether anything was good or bad, he just got to know him more. And Furufumi remembers this with happy fondness.

One night under the starry sky, Furufumi talked to Mononobe about himself. He talked about things he could never say to anyone, sad, frustrating things he thought he’d never say to anyone again. But that time Furufumi started struggling to voice what he wanted to say as he got agitated, and he sat there shaking.

Mononobe told him it was fine. He could just go at it a little bit at a time, whatever he could manage. That first time you start to challenge yourself, even for a little bit, is what we call courage.

Furufumi narrates about how he had always thought of himself as surrounded by enemies. He thought that the world he lived in was filled with hate, fighting, and sadness. But then he started thinking. If there was just one person who would get to know him, if he were to look up into the far off distance, he could see a star shining. He thought of it as just light, nothing to do with himself. So why is it that he could see it shine differently? When Furufumi looked at what was always there since he was born, he started to cry.

Flashback ends and picks up with all the Shadow dragons appearing and facing towards you guys in a straight line. You tell Furufumi to get back as you cover him. You fight with a few of the dragons, and Furufumi says the Shadows coming out of the book are memories of the past. He flips through his own book for a second, then asks you to wait for a bit.

You’re surprised by what he’s doing and ask about it. He says his book tells him everything that’s happened in the past and future, then casts his CS. After apparently analyzing whatever it is he’s just seen, he tells you that these are your past memories. They are memories washed away by the end of the world, memories that had happened once. In other words, they are you yourself, parts that were of you before. He then specifies they are your final memories from all the loops that occurred.

You are either surprised that he knows about the loops or take notice of his book of prophecy artifact. Either way he says he does, because that’s what his artifact was made to do. Then he asks if you also know that Tokyo has been repeatedly destroyed and made to repeat things. Every time it came to it, people would forget, which would in the end repeat the same ending.

Furufumi then says that the library holds all the ends of the world within it. His artifact is meant to pull them out, which is why he knows anything you guys do is pointless. All possibilities have been tested, but the future refused to change ending never changed.

If anyone were to know the futility of their own actions...Furufumi trails off on that to say this is why he told you that you shouldn’t come here. Knowing how and why you died is simply cruelty. If you didn’t know you could live with hope through the endless repeats. Humans couldn’t bear with it otherwise.

Furufumi then suggests you guys retreat. You decide to ask why he guided you here if what he said was true. He initially answers that it was the last thing the teacher asked of him, but changes his answer to be because he’s the manager of the place. It’s his responsibility to lead anyone who enters.

Having said that, Furufumi says he can’t overlook things if they know there’s danger involved. After a quick moment he then talks about how there are things people don’t need to know about, things they’d be better off not knowing. He calls that memory dangerous and says it’s an enemy that will destroy you.

He tries again to ask you to leave with him, but you instead thank him for worrying about you. You lower your sword and start walking towards the dragons to his bewildered shock. You then say you won’t run because you came here to know all that.

As you extend your hand out to the dragons, they respond in kind and extend their arms out as well. You and them overlap, and you say it was like That Time. The only difference is that instead of a shadow overlaying with your sword, they now overlay with your own body.

Furufumi calls out to you, and you wince. You say you remember this pressure, this rampage. It’s the rampage of a power, just like all the other Exception incidents. Your whole body “remembers” the pain that feels like it would split you apart, and someone yells. The yell comes from within your head, your chest, your soul.

Furufumi’s prophecy book starts reacting to this, opening page after page of that screaming, filled with details of the pain and suffering you felt when you and your selves died. The accumulated karma is filled with memories, and you body feels the reaction to your fate all over. All the old wounds from the past open up on you as if your whole being remembers.

You say this must be what Oniwaka and the others have gone through, and Furufumi says this is why he said a single person cannot carry the weight of accumulated history. You however say you’re okay and smile at him, to his confusion.

You think about how you could never have done this if this had been done when you had first come over to this world. But you have met many people and have been taught many things. Now you can say that this is not a curse. You have not been made to carry the past, and the pain you feel is not your present state. It is only an old memory, not something that harms you.

You know that you are able to believe that it is so. And since you know it, you are able to believe in it. History is nothing more than something that can tell you of an end someone who isn’t you reached, an end you might reach yourself. That someone is showing you how they lived and died, and in doing so tell you to take another path.

That alone might not be enough, but that’s where the advice Azathoth’s memory fragment gave comes in. There are those who have left Tokyo after fulfilling their wishes. There are those who have taught you that the end can change. That is why you have conviction. And the only one who controls yourself is you alone.

No matter how many different selves there are in you, there is only one of your self. So if you can believe in yourself...if you can believe from the bottom of your heart that you decide your path...if you can believe that you are your own ally from the bottom of your heart...

Scene switches to narration by Solomon. Whenever you go into a battle, a wall appears between you and him. It is a wall with the same pattern on that ring, carved with two triangles. That wall is what protects him, though there have been times when someone has managed to touch him from the other side he says, as Snow, Ded, and Musashi flash by in silhouette.

Solomon says it was painful and terrifying and talks about how he shivered in fear as he hid. He admits he wasn’t any help. He can’t do anything for you in battle, and he’s pretty much useless in the other world. He just cheers for you before battles start and sneaks back out when it’s done.

Yet even so, Solomon kept telling himself that he was your best butler to distract himself. But then there was that time where you asked “just what are you?” Solomon would like to know that himself. When you had asked him that, he became fearful because he didn’t know the answer. Mononobe has told he was a demon dragon, but that had no meaning to him.

Solomon says again that he is your butler. But if he can’t be any help to you and can’t even be trusted by you...what is he really? He wonders if he really couldn’t do anything for you from the start.

Solomon’s narration ends there as regular narration picks back up, saying that was a memory fragment that flew through your body. One was the young form of Yoshitsune, the exile of Wa no Kuni who disappeared in flames. One was the young form of Eurynome, the exile of Olympus who disappeared into the deep blue sea. One was the young form of Susanoo, the exile of Takamagahara who disappeared into the ends of the far off plateau. One was the young form of Shaitan, the exile of Eden who disappeared into the furthest reaches of the distant sky. And one was the unnamed exile of Old Ones, who disappeared beneath the earth to the deepest depths of the underworld.

There are other countless innumerable Shadows there. They carried the belief of their home worlds and disappeared from there. They are the 23 dragons cast out from their worlds into isolation. As you start to address them, you start to see the form of one dragon, past the wall where the many shadows have gathered.

You apologize for the wait and say you came to see him, even as you drag yourself forward feeling like you could split apart at any moment. The shadows fill your vision and cloud all you see in darkness, and you hear someone crying.

You call to Solomon. He is there on the other side of the wall, in the middle of the storm that would violently tear you to pieces. Furufumi is shocked that you guys are somehow in space or something else, while Solomon continues crying to himself. He sits there, alone amongst the infinite stars. There, in the hell that devastates faith and burns away light.

Seeing Solomon holding his knees to himself and shaking brings some memory back to Furufumi. You say you are the same as you think back to that day. That was the day Solomon came to see you when you were all alone. And yet, despite that...you forgot about it. You didn’t try to remember, even though you should have remembered.

You apologize for being late, say you came to see him this time, and admit you made him wait a while. Solomon hears you this time, cowering in shock. He calls to you, and you answer back, asking him to come back with you. Solomon reluctantly says he can’t, saying he isn’t any help and can’t even be trusted. You tell him he’s mistaken and apologize.

You tell him that it isn’t that you know someone that you believe in them. It is because you want to believe in them that you know them. That was what you were taught, that is what you remembered. It was what many people taught you.

Musashi, Hephaestus, and Azathoth flit through your thoughts, and then you say you two should go learn about yourselves together. You tell him that you want to believe in him. Solomon timidly extends his own shaking hand toward you, and finally the two of you make contact, like you’re gently holding hands. And for the first time, your sword hand holds the ring. And so you two hold hands, not to become as one but to stay as two.

Light starts spilling out, and Furufumi starts calling out to Mononobe. As he watches things unfold he remembers that day he was surrounded by stars. Flashback pops up to repeat what Mononobe said about how it’s okay to do things a little bit at a time and the bit about courage. It then extends things a bit further, with Mononobe saying deciding things is about what you believe in. It’s his opinion that you learn things because you want to believe.

Back to the present, the wall between you and Solomon has disappeared at some point. Narration compares it to a sugar sculpture melting away, and Solomon cries as he flies to you. You let him hug you and/or hug him back yourself. He babbles about how he had always... you cut across him to say you guys should go together to learn things together and say you’ll be counting on him. He readily agrees.

On the other side of Solomon, someone’s shadow wavers. Many shadows actually, at least twenty of them. You talk to the silhouettes, saying they were there inside Solomon and always waiting for you guys. As you and Solomon look at them, Furufumi feels like they are smiling. You tell the shadows you want to know about them too, step by step.

The shadows start gathering into you two, and light spills out again. When it fades, the hexagram patterned ring shines in your hand. Furufumi’s book reacts to his surprise, and when he opens it the last page that had always been blank now has a new verse. He wonders if this means it’s about something that has never happened in any of the loops so far. He asks Mononobe if that’s what it means as a tear runs down his cheeks, whispering the name of the teacher who is no longer there.

Elsewhere in the school, Triton knocks on a door asking if Mononobe is in. Jinn runs up saying he doesn’t seem to be where he was just at either. Triton has a lot of things to ask him about, but wonders where he could possibly have gone at this time of night. And so Chapter 9: System of Karma ends.