“Daiki was right,” Cap said to Aquila and Kasumi. “They’re a mess.”

    “We can’t leave them like this,” Kasumi said.

    Aquila nodded. “I agree.”

    “I feel like I should be able to cope with this,” Natsuki said. “Daiki had faith in me that I could. But, I can’t. None of us can. I thought I was smart, that I could call myself ‘Detective Natsuki’ and it could be something true, and not just some silly cute girl thing. But, I’m not smart – I’m just an idiot who thought that she was.”

    Aquila reached out and took Natsuki by the hand, looking deep into her eyes. “You figured out the true nature of your reality in less than a day, from clues that should have led you to any other conclusion. From what Daiki tells me, you were on your way to deducing a not small amount of the true nature of the multiverse while you were at it. No creation should have been able to do that in their own story world. You’re not just smart – you’re a genius!”

    “Where I come from, you’d be called a prodigy or a savant,” Cap said.

    “You’re wasted in a harem comedy,” Kasumi added. “You belong in a detective story, at the very least.”

    Natsuki wiped away a tear. “Thank you,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

    Aquila looked at all of them. “You can all relax – we’re here to help you. The way I see it, there are three options. I think I know which one you’re going to prefer, but I’m going to lay them all out anyway.

    “The first option is that I use my powers to erase Daiki Yamato and this knowledge from your memories. You’ll go on never knowing the true nature of your story world, and your actions will feel like your own again. I’m telling you this because you have a right to know that this option exists – it is not one I would choose for you if it was up to me.”

    “But it would fix everything,” Yuri said. “So why not?”

    “It would mean violating your minds to reset you,” Aquila said. “You’ve already started growing beyond your story – you all deserve better than to be reset. And, there was a time when I would have done that to you without hesitation. I refuse to be that person ever again.”

    “Would I end up hurting somebody?” Yukari asked.

    “If you’re really the yandere, probably,” Kasumi said.

    Yukari shook her head. “No. Please, no. Anything but that.”

    “As I said,” Aquila stated. “I only mentioned that option because you had the right to know it exists. I don’t consider it to be on the table now, or ever.

    “The second option is that we stay in this story world to help you work through this and accept it. We discussed this beforehand, and this is something we are all willing to do. I use my powers to change your story to integrate us into your school as teachers or counselors. You four will know the real reason we are here, but nobody else will. The upside is that there will be minimum disruption to you – you’ll still be in familiar settings. The downside is that none of us have ever done something like this before, and there’s no guarantee we’ll be any good at it. And, the harem comedy will continue, and you’ll play your roles in it – you’ll just be at peace with it after a while. If it works.”

    “And I’ll still hurt somebody,” Yukari stated.

    “I think I’m going to be sick,” Yuri said.

    Aquila smiled. “That’s what I thought. Option three is that we leave this story world and we take the four of you with us. You work through this and figure out who you really are and what you want away from the story, where all of your actions and thoughts are your own. And, you can all see Daiki Yamato again when we go back to his Japan for his wedding, whenever that ends up being.”

    Yukari’s face brightened. “We can go see other worlds?”

    Aquila nodded. “It’s a big multiverse. Lots to see on our way home to our world.”

    “Daiki said that it’s really dangerous out there,” Natsuki said. “He said that somebody like me...like us...wouldn’t last very long.”

    Aquila beamed her a wide, almost malicious grin. “The four of you, alone in the multiverse, would be eaten alive! Dangerous? Every danger any god of creation has ever imagined exists out there! There are monsters, demons, magical knights, wars, giant robots, aliens, spaceships, and eldritch beings with powers beyond your comprehension...like me.” Her grin widened as she leaned forward.

    Beside her, Kasumi chuckled.

    “But you wouldn’t be alone,” Aquila said, her smile becoming kind. “I’d be with you, and you’ve only seen the barest fraction of what I can do. Kasumi is a god of creation. And Cap is a superhero – he’s bulletproof, and can fly.”

    “And I can shoot lasers out of my eyes,” Cap said. “Don’t forget the laser eyes.”

    Kasumi leaned forward and whispered to Natsuki and her friends, “He really likes talking about the laser eyes.”

    Cap grinned. “If you could shoot lasers out of your eyes, you’d be bragging about it too.”

    “I think the three of us can keep you safe,” Aquila said. “But, there’s a serious downside to this – one bigger than all of the other options put together.

    “The information stream isn’t just a bridge between a story world and the hub world that created it – it’s the very thing that creates the story world in the first place. It also revises it, and keeps it in compliance with the story. If a character is missing when it updates with, say, a new chapter of the story, that character will be replaced.”

    A chill went down Natsuki’s spine. She glanced at the others. They looked back with concern. She turned to Aquila. “So you’re saying if we leave, some other...us...will just appear?”

    “Yes,” Aquila said. “Another you, with all of your memories prior to your divergence from the story. The story world will be rewritten so that you never left.”

    “And if we tried to return after this replacement has happened?” Natsuki asked, her stomach churning.

    “We don’t know,” Aquila replied. “Information streams don’t tolerate duplicates of the same character in story worlds. When the information stream updates, the story world will be revised so that there’s just one of you. Whether that means that you’re merged into a single person or the version of you who is most out of compliance with the story is erased, we just don’t know.”

    “She’s saying it’s probably a one-way trip,” Cap said. “Once you leave, it’s not safe to come back.”

    “But if we came back before the next update, that would be fine, right?” Sayori said. “We’d be left alone, right?”

    Aquila nodded. “In theory, yes. But there’s no way to predict when the next information stream update will happen. It could happen a month after you leave, a week, a day, or even an hour. It all depends on when your god of creation publishes the next chapter, or when enough people on the hub world consume it to create the critical mass that sends an update downstream.”

    “So if we come home and there’s two of us, one of us dies,” Natsuki said.

    “Scary,” Yukari said with a slight smile.

    “So, if you decide to do this, make sure you don’t leave anything unsaid to your parents,” Kasumi said. “That’s not a regret you ever want to have.”

    Aquila nodded. “That’s right. If you decide to come with us, all of you take the time you need to take care of any unfinished business you’ve got left. And, I think that covers everything. Did I miss anything?” She glanced to Kasumi and Cap.

    Both shook their heads.

    “Nothing comes to mind,” Cap said. “Other than taking time to think about if they need to.”

    Natsuki looked at her friends. She could see it in their eyes – the decision was easy. Sayori, Yuri, and Yukari all nodded to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aquila glance at the four of them and grin.

    Aquila leaned back in her chair. “So, infinite worlds, infinite stories, the past, the future, everything any creator in any creator world has ever imagined – all waiting to be seen. What do you think – want to go visit some new worlds?”

    Natsuki took another look at her friends, leaned forward, and said, “When do we leave?”

NEXT: “Tales from the Information Stream - Labyrinth”

AND...

Aquila, Kasumi, and Captain Infinite are touring the story worlds with their new friends. But when they discover the brutal murder of the protagonist of a dating game, Aquila realizes that the worst has happened.

Hunted by a powerful adversary who will stop at nothing to recruit or kill her, Aquila must now lead her companions to safety. As they flee a war that threatens to consume all of the story worlds, Aquila will be forced to face the sins of her past in a final reckoning that will determine the fate of billions...