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It was not natural.

A freakishly sinister black vortex spun like a black hole; drawing in, absorbing, and then destroying matter―like this, it flawlessly annihilated all that was around it.

Space tore and ripped, rended and wrest apart within moments by the dreaded twisting nether that seemed to oppose life itself.

It didn\'t matter that I had all the time in the world.

Because this anomalous devil didn\'t care for the distinction between what was resisting the river of time and what flowed along with it.

It was far too malevolent and significant a force for that.

Simply sitting at the end, it waited to swallow everything whole, and nothing could escape its insatiable maw.

No matter the dimension, it ate the world. Be it space, time, or something else entirely, it was ruptured and shredded by the corrupting void all the same.

Encroaching our world from a place that shouldn\'t exist, this unbelievable manifestation of hell will utterly ruin the planet on a global scale within hours, and that outcome was certainly inevitable.

It could not be described with any words except \'end of the world\'.

A catastrophe the type never imagined in the history of mankind.

And yet, this apocalyptic mess was caused by a single, terrifying individual.

One man.

No, he was more of a monster than a human―his actions and behaviours were evidence enough of that.

Gazing at his weary, expressionless face from a distance, the silent madness in his eyes, I wondered in the final few moments of my slowly ticking life while waiting for the approaching death.

...Just what happened for it to end up this way, Cipher?

You weren\'t always like this.

Look at your face now; it\'s as if the soul has been sucked out of you.

The times you smiled as you watched your companions perform well for your praise.

The times you laughed when a brilliant plan worked out as you expected it to.

Even the times you swore and took advantage of my kindness to try and kill me for good.

―Where did they all go?

All that emotion I used to resent so, where did any of it drain to?

The person I used to argue with about what was right and what was wrong; where did he wander off to?

You were an absolutely deplorable man, but a man nevertheless, and men can change.

But now... There is simply nothing.

Someone who cast away all he had, and for what? A man with nothing, and who wants for nothing but the world\'s end.

A man at his limit who can change no longer.

Degraded from man to beast, what can I possibly do to help you now? Even I do not have such power to sway the illogical thoughts of a monster.

At my wit\'s end, I lamented my own incompetence and inability to change his mind.

...Thinking back on it now, there was so much more I could have done to help.

I, who was too focused on the injustices being committed in front of my eyes, was seeing the forest for the trees. I failed to see the bigger picture, the deeper reasoning behind it all.

Perhaps, if I didn\'t wait so long, I could have changed the outcome...

Or maybe, fate, in the grand scheme of things, cannot be altered.

Either way, it didn\'t matter now.

No matter how many times I regressed from here, I could only go so far back in time. The ending was already set in stone.

And so, gradually, the world was swallowed up.

Engulfed by the purest nothingness, everything disintegrated into the void and vanished.

From the tips of my crumbling fingers and toes, I too was fading away.

I lost my feeling along with any sense of reality.

My end eventually came, and so did the last passing thought in my mind.

My dying wish.

The same wish I had desired many times in the past, but one I was far too late to realise.

[One final time; to the beginning, I want to return and make things right.]

In the next moment, even my consciousness expired.

And then.

I, Azaki Kiryuuin, died for the last time.

❖─────❖─────❖

Tick... Tick... Tick...

Suddenly, I woke up. The sound of a clock ticking resounded as the sole noise in the room.

"..."

Tick... Tick... Tick...

I laid still, the soft embrace of the bed enveloping me whole, with my open eyes staring blankly at the white ceiling above.

This...

At my recognition of the regrettably familiar environment, I muttered in confusion.

"...A hospital...?"

No, not quite.

"Ugh."

Raising my torso, I sat my stiff body up in the bed and looked around. I was in a suite-like empty room that gave a small sense of dissonance if you compared it to a regular hospital room.

I knew why that was almost immediately―because this isn\'t a regular hospital.

I was currently in a facility belonging to the Wardens of Future\'s Blight, my lifelong partner organisation.

"But why...? Ah!"

My face hardened as the floodgate of memories opened.

The scene of the Earth being ruthlessly clawed apart and gulped by the void replayed within my mind.

"That\'s right... He destroyed the world..."

Needless to say, I shouldn\'t be alive right now.

Even if my Measurement of Time had successfully activated to take me into the past as it normally does when I die, it shouldn\'t be able to take me back more than a few days, so how on Earth...?

Was it because the entire world ended this time? It didn\'t just end with my death, but the extinction of the world itself, so it sent me back...

I was making such conjectures when I recalled the final thought before I died.

[One final time; to the beginning, I want to return and make things right.]

My desire to save not just the world, but even that man, too. Was it because I wished dearly for it? More than I ever have before?

Whatever the case was, the second chance I wanted had been granted...

With that understanding, suddenly, something appeared in front of me―a transparent screen floated in the air with a string of text on it.

「Your gift, the Measurement of Time, has evolved」

I stared at the sentence blankly.

...What...?

Before I had time to react, more screens materialised from thin air.

「Your gift, the Measurement of Time, has been removed and replaced with a new gift, the Measurement of Dimension」

「Due to the inherent nature and power of the new ability, as well as your inexperience with it, the majority of its capabilities will be sealed until you grow able to withstand and use them」

「Assistance will be granted to support your growth - to access, use your will」

「Use this precious second chance to accomplish what you set out to do」

「You will not be granted a third attempt」

I couldn\'t believe what I was seeing.

My Measurement of Time had evolved? I\'d never even heard of something like the Measurement of Dimension before...

I briefly wondered what it meant by \'assistance\', but that could wait for now.

Not just that, but the latter messages seemed almost... Personal, which was oddly creepy.

But, that ... There\'s no way... Right? Unless what that guy said is... No, even if that were true, what does it matter?

All that mattered was that I had somehow been granted a second chance.

I would not... Whether something like a third attempt existed or not, I would not let this invaluable time go to waste.

This time for sure, I will save the world.

...Cipher, too.

I\'ll figure out just what it was that caused him to change so drastically, and I\'ll make sure things are different this time.

First things first, I need to find out what the situation is. I\'m clearly in the middle of recovery, but since my body always heals when returning on death, I don\'t know which \'ending\' I regressed to.

I didn\'t seem to have a phone on me, so I got out of bed and walked over to the desktop computer in the corner of the room. I was wearing nothing but a hospital gown, but it didn\'t bother me as there were more important concerns.

Even just walking from the bed to the desk, I realised that my body feels strange in a few ways, which indicates I\'m quite a bit further into the past than I initially thought.

Hopefully, that means I\'ve returned to one of the earlier times and I\'ll have plenty of time to change the future, such as when I was tricked and exploded into smithereens all those years ago.

Whirr-!

As expected of the Wardens\' equipment―no matter the year, the computer booted up rather quickly. My gaze immediately snapped to the corner of the screen.

[14/11/2027]

Eyes wide open, my gaping mouth exclaimed in shock.

"7... I\'ve gone back 7 years...?!"

Not only that but the date―14th of November―was one I recalled clearly.

The first time that man killed me. Well, perhaps half of the fault there lay with my own incompetence, but it was two weeks after our first-ever time meeting.

That Halloween... For two weeks, it was some of the most excruciating pain I\'ve ever experienced, and the subconscious, harrowing feeling that I was going to die was deep-rooted in my flesh ever since.

Still...

"H-haha..."

A weird, amazed smile formed on my face as my lips arched and I chuckled out of pure astonishment as my hands tightly clenched without me realising.

This... Seven years of future knowledge; of experience and insight...

―With something like this, saving the world becomes a real possibility.

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(Volume 2 END)