「 episode 24; arc 6.2 」 —first respite (b-side)//cosmic variance— 「 yerim ii 」

“If I didn’t know any better…”

In the midst of unending waves of people and cars all around her, a young sorceress was left to gawk at the stunning marvel of a city she now found herself standing in the very center of. 

Frozen in the middle of an absurdly busy intersection, Yeojin was thoroughly paralyzed by disbelief. Her neck was craned back as far as she could manage, allowing her vision to be completely drowned by the seemingly infinite amount of skyscrapers that surrounded her at every conceivable angle. 

“...I’d swear I was standing in New York City right now...”

“Let’s keep moving, Yeojin!”

A familiar voice calling her name was immediately followed up with the forward tug of another arm linked around hers. Brought back to reality, Yeojin blinked as she saw Yerim nudging her forward. The bright light from the sun above was nearly as radiant as her smile. “You don’t want to cause a traffic jam!”

With her eyes shifting about awkwardly, Yeojin quickly realized how the general population around her had been adjusting for the pause she took to revel in her bewilderment. Individuals of all ages and types, many of which seemed to be terribly busy, were giving her a number of glances ranging from confused to annoyed as they moved around her. It was clear that while some degree of tourist amazement was to be expected in a metropolis as spectacular as Mobius, so too was common decency in not becoming a stopping block in an ever-moving rush of people with places to go.

“Oh, sorry!” Yeojin apologized with pure honesty, allowing herself to be led forward by her violet-haired guide. “This just feels crazy familiar...” 

Resuming a path alongside her in the torrent of bodies, the girl of wind’s gaze wasn’t deterred from the steel towers that rose high around her on all sides. Looking over her shoulder, Yerim’s smile widened at the sight of Yeojin’s eyes being glued to the architectural wonder of Mobius’ skyscrapers. “Is Mobius similar to somewhere you’ve been back on Earth?”

“Yeah. Well, uh, no—I never visited there myself,” Yeojin corrected herself. Dozens upon dozens of advertisements on titanic electronic displays fitted to the sides of nearly every building nearby amplified the feelings of intense familiarity she was experiencing. “I’ve only seen it in pictures, but...it really feels like I’m standing in Times Square right now. I can’t wrap my head around it...”

Coming to a stop at the corner of the block they were on, Yeojin’s attention began to drift as she and Yerim were left to wait for a traffic guard to signal the horde of civilians to cross. The immediate thing that jumped out to the girl of wind was the mixture of magi and humans alike all around her—for every individual with a permanently altered left eye telling of their status, there were just as many people without one.

“How many of these people are like us?”

“In what sense?” 

“I mean, like...magi who just haven’t had their left eye change for good yet,” Yeojin clarified her question, inciting a nod from Yerim. “I guess the easier way to phrase it would be to ask what the population is like here between magi and humans.”

“According to the latest census from a few years back, out of the few million people that live here, it’s pretty close to an even fifty-fifty split,” Yerim said plainly.

“That...wow.”

Yeojin’s brief response brought Yerim’s eyes to her, complete with a matching head tilt. “Does the number of people surprise you? Or the equal division between magi and humans?”

“To be honest...both.”

Before Yerim could press her curiosity any further, a sharp whistle cut her train of thought short.

The crowd was progressing forward once again, beckoned forth by the continuous waving of the traffic guard attending to it. The pair moved forward with haste, eager not to get swept up by the mass of bodies around them and continuing with their tour of Mobius. In the distance, Yerim could begin to make out their primary destination. “Oh, there’s the Council House!”

As she was ushered through the streets of Mobius by her excited friend, Yeojin saw more and more things that particularly seemed absurd to her. 

In passing the front of a small floral shop, she witnessed the azure odd eye of the elderly florist beyond the glass window flash gently—the sorceress had conjured a small waterfall above the opening to a display vase by the window, filling it to her desired point before canceling her effect. Settling an array of flowers she was holding inside the vase, she finished the arrangement just in time to look up and see a bemused Yeojin passing by with an expression of due shock. She waved at the young girl in kind with a smile, a gesture that Yeojin only just managed to return before Yerim’s guidance brought her to her next point of interest.

After crossing another street with the help of another traffic controller, Yeojin’s keen attention was next stolen away by an unassuming food stand parked on the sidewalk. With two magi born of fire and ice attending to a growing line of customers, the main attraction of the stand was the display box which held a number of prepared hot dogs, burgers, and the like. At the behest of a gentleman pointing to one, the ice-aligned employee retrieved it for him, only for the other worker to transfer one she had just finished preparing into the case to fill its spot. A quiet exhale brought her altered iris to life as she set down the finished plate. A ring of her dust transformed into a gentle low-level flame around the food which carefully kept it at the perfect temperature for whoever might next choose it.

Completing the customer’s order was a request of a fountain drink, which the ice-linked service worker was happy to fulfill. Filling up a cup with the chosen beverage from an automated dispenser behind them, they proceeded to open a nearby metallic container from which they scooped up a load of ice cubes from. After handing the completed order to their customers and receiving payment, their co-worker handled the next customer as they went about refilling the ice by means of their own natural effect—a soft flash of their odd eye came about in harmony with pockets of their mana materializing before them. The dust coalesced into a downpour of ice cubes which they let rain down into the freezer storage for a few moments before dispelling the effect and shutting it closed.

Similar sights of elementalism playing an integral role in day-to-day life bombarded Yeojin as she continued her journey with Yerim. It wasn’t until they came to a stop at another busy crosswalk that her thoughts were allowed the chance to catch up. “Seeing magi use their mana like this in public...this is just so bizarre, man…”

“Was Earth not like this?” Yerim asked, her infinite curiosity driven further by Yeojin’s complete surprise to what she herself had always known as normal.

“No, not at all. Like, not even remotely,” Yeojin said with a surefire lack of hesitation. “It’s not even funny how crazy unreal seeing this kind of thing is for me. Did this stuff not surprise you when you showed up?”

“It didn’t, no. For the most part, it was more or less the same. Well, mostly…”

“So then this kind of thing was just the norm back in, uh…?”

“Eden,” Yerim said, finishing Yeojin’s question for her as she nodded, “and yes, it was. I grew up seeing aether and arcanism used much the same way my whole life. The differences between Eden and Mobius…”

Perceiving a shift in Yerim’s demeanor, Yeojin fell quiet as she watched her friend sigh near inaudibly to herself. She was focused on something in the near distance which seemed to be the present focus of her degrading mood.

“...suffice it to say, they lie elsewhere.”

At the sound of another traffic controller whistle, she perked up as best as she could and tugged Yeojin forward again. “Come on! The Mobius Council House is right over there!”

Riding the waves of the massive crowd, the pair of wind and fire finally broke away from the forward-moving rush of people after swimming within it for several blocks. Crossing another street, they came to a stop in front of a black and white building sporting an aesthetic design which Yeojin could only classify as the weirdly mixed lovechild of gothic Victorian and futuristic art deco. 

The focal point of the main building in front of them was but one of many sides—had Yeojin been looking at it from above, she would have seen the building as the twelve-sided dodecagon it actually was, with each corner housing a tower that rose several stories high. Atop each tower sat a monument cut from black and white marble, each in the shape of a distinct animal. Though the building was effectively sandwiched between higher skyrises on all sides of it, the height of its dozen towers remained nothing to scoff at. Each tower was linked to the two closest to it with a series of open-air sky bridges, all of which were being traversed by important-looking members of local government.

At the center of the structure between the twelve towers that surrounded the main compound was the second floor of the establishment, the roof of which was styled in a massive glass dome. The towers found additional support through steel columns and foundations attached to the dome, finalizing the look of the building with a particularly busy framework. The technological wonder of its comprehensive design was enough to freeze Yeojin much like the center of Mobius had prior, leaving her to gawk at it in wonder before Yerim snapped her out of her trance with another tug forward.

“This is where Grandmaster Hyuna and the other Council members do all of their hard work,” Yerim began, leading Yeojin past a large fountain and up the building’s far-spanning flight of stairs to the entrance. “It’s really pretty inside, and they have pictures of all of the Council members! Come on!”

“Sweeping reforms for Mobius!”

“Tampering with the forces of nature will see us ruined!”

“All magi within the Mobius Council House must step down!”

“Reform! Reform!”

Halfway up their ascent, Yeojin and Yerim came to a stop as a thunderous cacophony of agitated voices became louder by the second.

Turning the nearby corner of the building, a group of several dozen people were marching in formation while waving handmade signs and posters. Their fashion was well-coordinated, each of them wearing some manner of shirt or sweater with a twelve-pointed star printed upon it—a dodecagram, and within its center, an infinity symbol styled much the same as the Mobius loop leyline which rested above the city. The printed design in its entirety was then crossed out with two bold of red above it, making their sentiment towards whatever the emblem or logo represented quite clear.

“Sweeping reforms for Mobius!”

“Reform! Reform!”

Yeojin watched in silence as the group continued around the building. A man at its front was equipped with a megaphone which he shamelessly used to push the group’s agenda, repeating their lines ad nauseam. After a moment, they vanished around the side of the building, no doubt to perform another lap around the entire compound.

Looking towards Yerim, Yeojin saw it again—the downward shift in her mood. The descent of her normally bright sunshine was rare to witness in any capacity, and Yeojin quickly made the connection to her demeanor minutes prior when they had been walking to the Council House. “Is that what you were talking about?”

“Yeah,” Yerim said frankly, unable to hold back a sigh which seemed to be built from unpleasant memories. “Eden and Mobius are very much alike, but Eden had far more of that. It’s like Archmagus Lee said the night Sooyoung and my sisters brought you back—Mobius still has its own fair share of people who think we’re out to hurt them or that we don’t belong. It’s not very many, but they’re certainly here, and they like to make use of their legal right to protest.”

“What’s even the issue, though?” Yeojin asked. Looking around, she took notice of the minimal attention paid to the protestors by the people around, if any. “Who are they even preaching to? Whatever’s bothering them clearly isn’t bothering anyone else. Does this actually have anything to do with whatever the Council members are doing, or are they just—”

“Why don’t we head inside, Yeojin?”

Her question cut short by a smiling Yerim, Yeojin read the room and nodded slowly. “Uh...yeah, alright.”

The mood stabilized between the two as Yerim led them up the rest of the staircase. Walking past a gargantuan set of all-glass automatic doors, Yeojin’s steps into the main foyer of the Mobius Council House slowed to a crawl as she took in the absolute wonder of the building’s immaculate interior design.

Regal was too simple a word, as was magnificent. The majestic hall that Yeojin was standing within was simply beyond her mind, far unlike anything she had ever seen in her limited time across three timelines so far. The ever relevant theme of black and white present on both the outside of the building and even all of BBC's headquarters was on display in full. The floor she stepped on was lined with colorful, intricate tilework showcasing painstakingly crafted abstract designs involving a set of twelve animals. On the walls, modernistic single-color paintings which could have belonged in a worldly museum were hung all over. Above Yeojin, chandeliers that looked like they cost an amount of money that she couldn’t even comprehend lined the ceiling, while exorbitant animal-shaped statues of varying colors that seemed even pricier decorated the sides of the main hallway. 

Curiously, the colors of the animal statues consistently matched up with the colors of the self-same animals embellished into the floor’s design—owls were always red, swans were always burgundy, deers pink, and so on. There were twelve animals represented in all, each with a designated color. The monochromatic paintings throughout the building only seemed to utilize one color out of the set of twelve, creating a cohesive theme throughout.

Coming to a stop in the center of the foyer, Yeojin and Yerim joined other tourists and first-time visitors huddling around a scale model figure of the building sitting behind a plaque of black and white marble. In the middle of the marble panel, an insignia was etched. It was the same emblem Yeojin had seen on the protestor’s shirts—a twelve-pointed dodecagram star with an infinity loop in its center, Mobius’ city emblem. Above and below the crest, there was text describing the building, but the two-line header stood out to Yeojin over the rest.

MOBIUS, SANCTUARY OF THE TWELVE
Life Observed, Oblivion Never Arrived

Her eyes moving from the informative plaque, Yeojin next scanned the scale model of the Council House itself. It was through the miniature recreation that she was able to make out the structure’s true shape and the animals that dotted the top of its twelve towers, leading to the realization that they were the same as those represented through the statues and tilework inside. Yeojin regarded them all with equal curiosity and confusion, half-mumbling to herself with a scratch of her head as she struggled to make sense of it. “Not gonna lie, the selection of animals doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Just seems like a random assortment...why these twelve? What’s the idea here?”

“It’s to do with Mobius’ origins,” Yerim explained. “Mobius’ birth as an independent city-state came about when it was founded one hundred and forty-four years ago by twelve magi—the original twelve members of the Council House. Their identities are a mystery, as they were only ever referred to by a combination of their assigned number and representative animal, which was distinguishable by masks they wore.”

Yerim’s information followed with a helpful point of her index finger along the towers, and Yeojin followed along closely. “The First Rabbit, the Second Cat, the Third Dove, the Fourth Frog, the Fifth Deer, the Sixth Owl, the Seventh Fish, the Eighth Bat, the Ninth Swan, the Tenth Penguin, the Eleventh Butterfly, and the Twelfth Wolf. They’re referred to as the Twelve, and Mobius wouldn’t be here without them.”

Yeojin nodded, her curiosity sated. Yet, at the same time, it wasn’t. As she and Yerim walked around the scale figure of the Council House with the rest of the group, she sunk her thumb into her cheek in contemplation. “So these twelve magi founded Mobius over a century ago...but why hide themselves? Why hide behind masks of animals and numbers?”

“That one I can’t really answer, nor can anyone else, unfortunately,” Yerim revealed, much to Yeojin’s disappointment. “There’s a lot of unanswered questions regarding the Twelve. Despite their impact on the planet and civilization as a whole by founding what is now one of the world’s biggest centers of technology and elementalism, history books don’t have a lot to say about them. Official records don’t reveal much either. Until historians manage to unveil something, as it stands, it’s basically like they showed up, founded Mobius, and then vanished…”

“Should’ve figured as much,” Yeojin lamented with a small shrug of her shoulders. “There’s always gotta be some crazy mystery wrapped around this kinda stuff. Too much to ask for a straightforward answer, I guess…”

“Archmagus Lee Sunmi! A question, please!”

“Sunmi, what brings you to the Council House? Is there a yet-to-be-announced meeting planned?”

“Lee Sunmi, can you comment on last week’s proceedings?”

The sound of a familiar name mixed amid the growing volume of a small crowd brought all eyes and attention to the entrance behind Yeojin and Yerim. The Neophytes were met with the unexpected sight of their boss entering the building with a swarm of reporters and cameras around her, microphones raised and at the ready. A handful of bodyguards at her sides kept them at bay, leaving the Archmagus ample passage to enter the premises. Dressed in a casual yet formal fit of an open blazer and lean slacks, her heels clicked with a sense of authority as a pair of designer sunglasses prevented the barrage of camera flashes from blinding her.

“There’s nothing to speak of at this moment in time,” Sunmi announced as she came to a stop just ahead of the central model figure display. Her security detail was quick to line up at her front the moment she turned around, protecting her from the overly enthusiastic invasion of personal space by the members of the press. “Rest assured, if there were news to share regarding anything of significance, a statement would have been made by now. It’s just business as usual in Mobius.”

“Lee Sunmi—”

“Archmagus Sunmi—”

Impossible to please as they were in any reality or timeline, journalists and television reporter crews alike continued their attempts to probe for information even as Sunmi graced them with a bow. She continued further into the building with two of her personnel while the rest held off the crowd, protected from the constant flashing of cameras by thick sunglasses of their own.

Before departing fully, Sunmi graced the crowd of tourists with a quick glance. Tilting her shades downward, she found her target—a thoroughly surprised Yerim. A small smile crept on her face as she winked at her, to which Yerim smiled at with a small wave.

Yeojin’s own smile in response was tainted, however, as she perceived the faintest hint of Sunmi’s grin weakening at the sight of her.

As quickly as she had appeared, the Archmagus was gone, disappearing behind a door attended to by a security guard. The members of the press dispersed without fanfare, and the group of tourists Yeojin and Yerim had become one with gradually broke apart as they went their separate ways. 

“Oh, the other room I wanted to show you is right over here!” Yerim suddenly spoke up, linking her arm around Yeojin’s once more and leading her forward. “You can learn about all of the Council members!”

Without protest, Yeojin allowed herself to be dragged forward, eager to move on and forget what she could only hope was her mind worrying over nothing.

A short walk saw the two Neophytes enter a wide-open space. Shaped like a semi-circle, the room’s flat wall was a window peering out to a small garden in one of the corners of the compound. Along the curvature of the opposite wall, portraits were neatly arranged in groups of twelve. Each had a plaque of black obsidian underneath it, white text imprinted upon it detailing the person in the portrait above.

“The councils of Mobius throughout the years!”

Yerim’s voice came to life as she walked along the historical monument with Yeojin, weaving their way through other visitors. “Every twelve years, the people of Mobius vote for the next set of Council members. The twelve of them rule as an oligarchy, governing Mobius together and voting on matters and issues brought up through the chain of local government.”

“Can’t lie, it’s a little weird how often the number twelve keeps popping up here,” Yeojin said, her face marked by a slight grimace. “Feels kinda...ominous for some reason? Can’t put my finger on it.”

“I can see how it might come off as a little strange at times, I agree,” Yerim reasoned. “I suppose you can just leave it at the number twelve being something of great significance towards Mobius’ history.”

“And I guess it all comes back to them. The Twelve, huh?”

Yerim came to a stop alongside Yeojin. She joined her in peering at the furthest set of portraits—twelve hooded figures in colored robes, each matching the hue of animal-shaped masks beneath their hoods which hid what little of their faces would have been visible already. As per the lack of recorded history explaining their lives, the informative plaques beneath them were the most barren by far out of all other sets of Council members with only their associated numbers and representative animals to speak of.

With a roll of her eyes unseen to Yerim, Yeojin mumbled to herself underneath her breath as they moved on. “Not digging the creepy bizzaro cult vibes, if I’m being honest, but I’d be stuck in a fast-expiring universe if it weren’t for them, so I guess I should be thankful...not that they’re even alive anymore.”

Their path along the wall continued, taking in generations of history in the form of Mobius’ past leaders. Coming to the far end, Yeojin stopped as she reached the final set, seeing two familiar faces. “There’s Sunmi...and that Hyuna lady, too.”

Yerim joined Yeojin in regarding the portraits in full. She had seen it plenty of times prior, but the girl of fire was taking the experience with as much interest as she did the first time. Yeojin skimmed over the short history of each member’s panel, paying closest attention to their names and ranks.

TWELFTH OLIGARCHY OF THE MOBIUS COUNCIL HOUSE
Archmagus Kwon Boa, Archmagus Kim Taeyeon, Archmagus Lee Sunmi
Grandmaster Kim Chungha, Grandmaster Lee Jieun, Grandmaster Song Dahye
Grandmaster Kim Hyuna, Grandmaster Kim Hyojong, Grandmaster Lee Hoetaek
Grandmaster Lee Suhyun, Grandmaster Lee Chanhyuk

With a lifted brow, Yeojin tilted her head as she made an observation through the point of each portrait having mismatched eyes. “Huh...they’re all magi. But, wait a second...I know I’m not great at math, but that’s definitely eleven, not twelve. They’re missing one?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Yerim said with a nod. “The final member elected with the twelfth oligarchy actually stepped down soon after being sworn in with the rest of them. A replacement is supposed to be sworn in by next week, I think.”

“Really? That happen often?”

“No, not at all. This is the first time in history that such a thing has occurred, given that a seat in the Mobius oligarchy is easily the most sought after position by any politician in this city. Some equate it to being a president of a country...or a twelfth of one, anyway.”

“Sounds like a cushy gig, which makes it even weirder,” Yeojin remarked, the information only making her more confused. “You get voted into a spot that tons of people are gunning for, and then you call it quits before you’ve even really started? Wonder what happened…”

“No one’s sure,” Yerim said with a small frown. “The council member in question never spoke on the matter, either. He refused to comment, and he hasn’t been seen since.”

“And they didn’t even honor him on the wall as a temporary member or anything either...yikes, man. That’s gotta hurt. What was his name?”

“If I recall correctly, his name was Jad—”

A loud buzzing interrupted Yerim. Originating from the depths of her bag, she retrieved her phone from within it and swept at something on her screen. As she kept swiping, her eyes widened. “Oh, shoot! Hyunjin and Sooyoung are already at Eyedi’s with Heejin and Jinsol! I didn’t even realize they had already texted me and I didn’t know it was so late already...let’s hurry, Yeojin!”

Without much time to prepare her still aching legs, the girl of wind was whisked away by a scurrying Yerim, led out of the Mobius Council House with little opportunity to look at much else. As Yeojin was dragged out of the building post-haste, deeper within its halls and offices, the woman who could no longer smile at her in full was spearheading a discussion about her.

“You’re sure of this, Lee Sunmi?”

“There is little question or otherwise appropriate explanation in my mind, so as far as I can understand it, yes—”

A discussion revolving around the newfound anomaly of her existence.

“—Yeojin has sidestepped. It’s likely that a complete deviation from history is imminent.”

In a palatial expanse directly underneath the center of the second floor’s glass dome ceiling, Sunmi stood next to a seat labeled with her name at a massive twelve-sided table. Her sunglasses were pushed up over her head, revealing her faded light-gray odd eye half-closed with anxious uncertainty.

The center of the room housing the grand table was sunken into the ground slightly, with completely vacant seating rising in layers from right above the area around it to the entrances and exits at the topmost section. The table itself was equipped with twelve kingly chairs of alternating black and white plush leather, each one fitting for someone in a far-reaching position of power. Upon the middle of the table, a familiar insignia was painted—a dodecagram with an infinity symbol inside of its center, the emblem of Mobius itself. Of the table’s seats, only two were occupied—they stood a few spots apart from each other at the opposite end of the table, and the women situated in each were marked with grave, solemn expressions.

“Such is the reason I have called for you both on such short notice,” Sunmi said, her tone of voice far more withdrawn and quiet than normal. “I was...I was unsure of where to go from here.”

The woman on the left took a deep breath. Wood scraped against tile as she pushed her seat labeled Kwon Boa backwards, rising to her feet. With crossed arms, the black-haired sorceress paced back and forth for a moment. The barely present signs of aging on her face which only somewhat outdid Sunmi’s were slightly amplified as she scrunched her face in contemplation. “Yeojin’s observation of the true connection between you and Ha Sooyoung...when did the records say she was meant to come to that realization?”

“In every prior instance, she has consistently come to that conclusion in roughly a few weeks time,” Sunmi answered. “One month from now, to be precise.”

“That’s too much time. Far, far too much time.”

“But can this cosmic variance truly not be considered as falling within our expectations?”

“It can’t, Kim Taeyeon, and we’re all very much aware of it.”

The pacing sorceress came to a stop. With a hand in her hair, she stared hard at the ground below her. An odd eye sharing Sunmi’s faded light-gray shade narrowed as she convinced herself of what she knew to be true. “Cosmic variance can’t possibly account for something so temporally displaced from recorded history. Even if it’s just a small question or observation, if it happens much earlier or much later than it was meant to, then there’s no denying it.”

Brunette locks swayed as the seated sorceress shot up from her chair. Her hands on the table, she continuously shifted a jumpy gaze between Sunmi and Boa. Behind circular lenses, mismatched shades of the same light-gray and a bright brown quivered slightly, b with concern. “If this is true, Kwon Boa...if Lee Sunmi speaks the truth and Im Yeojin has deviated, then…”

“Everything is out the window, Kim Taeyeon. Everything.”

Boa’s answer was instant. The Archmagus’ hands were tightened around the suspenders of her white dress shirt, her vision focused on the emblem of Mobius inscribed upon the grand table’s center. “One deviation is going to lead to another, and then another, sidestep after sidestep. It’ll keep piling up, and soon enough we’re so far off course that the records will be little more than a suggestion. Worst case scenario…”

Sunmi felt her chest tighten as Boa held on to her words. The much older Archmagus didn’t look at either of her two colleagues as she finished her thought, consumed by the implications of it.

“...those little episodes of déjà vu evolve, and they start recalling future memories from previous instances. At that point, you can just throw the Akashic records out, because there’s no telling what’s coming anymore. That is, assuming we haven’t reached that point already.”

“None of them have reported anything of the like, though, have they?” Taeyeon quickly followed, shifting her attention to Sunmi. Hopeful eyes awaited an answer that might provide any amount of hope. “They haven’t, have they, Lee Sunmi?”

“They haven’t, no, but that’s not to say they haven’t already started experiencing it in some capacity,” Sunmi said, her logic inciting a nod from Boa and a further sinking of Taeyeon’s frown. “I’m sure they might shrug it off as a result of anxiety or stress and would find little reason in bringing it up with me or any of our medical personnel.”

“And approaching them about it yourself isn’t exactly an option, either,” Boa continued through another sigh. “You run the risk of only furthering their awareness that this isn’t the first time they’ve been through this. A lose-lose situation to be certain.”

“Thus, we return to the original question.”

Clearing up, Sunmi’s voice gradually returned to its normal composure as she addressed her fellow women born of space-time. “Where, if anywhere, do I go from here? There was nothing in the records detailing the possibility of a full-scale deviation, much less what to do should it occur.”

“No point in detailing how to handle something that no one has any way of handling in the first place. The only way to go is forward, regardless of what happens.”

Succinct and to the point, Boa’s answer was without hesitation. “Our only option is to proceed as planned. Cosmic variance was always the one thing that we couldn’t account for, and there’s no answer to an occurrence this severe resulting in a full-blown deviation like this. There never was, and we all knew that—even the Twelve did. We don’t have a choice but to keep pushing forward, especially when you consider the alternative.”

“Then...then what of Yang Hyun-suk?”

Taeyeon’s question was met with silence. Pushing up her glasses, her voice resumed where Sunmi’s and Boa’s failed. “Should we inform him of this…? As our colleague, does he not have a right to this knowledge?”

Sunmi felt her stomach turn.

“He’s as helpless as we are right now,” Boa said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “No matter how hard he tries, there’s nothing he can do to correct the course of history. Might as well let him hold on to that fragile pride of his. Why not let him think that everything’s still going according to his plans? Tch…”

The eldest of the space-time trio shamelessly showcased a scoff of deep-rooted animosity as she considered it further. “Now that we’ve got confirmation that we’re not on track anymore, I can’t imagine what he’d say. I’m sure he’d blame us, as if anyone could ever be blamed for any episode of cosmic variance. So let him find out the hard way. Let him struggle as much as we’re about to in the coming weeks.”

“Kwon Boa…”

“He thinks of everyone as nothing but pawns, so let’s stay quiet and wait to play our part like good pawns should,” Boa continued, becoming more and more riled the more her mind sat on the image of YG in her head. “He won’t accept any more of our help. He’s convinced that since the pursuit of the solution to true eternity was his idea, he doesn’t need us for anything else. Ever since the Twelve approved of this initiative of his and set him off on it, he’s been nothing but obsessed with history, and even though we’re all after the same thing here, he still—”

“I would request that you avoid the usage of ‘we’ in this context.”

Suddenly interrupted by her junior, Boa fell quiet. 

It was with thinly veiled discontent that the oldest woman in the room turned her head towards Sunmi. Aged eyes that had seen more than most could scarce imagine regarded her in judgmental silence, awaiting the same old sentiment that she had heard from her time and time again. On the contrary, Taeyeon was looking at Sunmi in the way a worried mother might gaze upon her troubled child, unsure of what to say.

Given full attention by her elders, Sunmi reminded them of a key point she was keen to bring up whenever relevant. In a way, it seemed that she was saying it to remind herself more than anyone else, as if it validated her in a fashion that kept her grounded. “I refuse to be equated to any of you. YG’s plan for true eternity and your involvement in it...I could not possibly be further removed from it all. YG is not my colleague, and our goals are not the same. The only reason I’m here is—”

“—to see all of LOONA’s sorceresses safe and sound. Yes, yes, Lee Sunmi, we are well aware of that. Believe me, you and each of the eleven previous versions of you who once stood where you’re standing now have all refused to let us think otherwise,” Boa interjected Sunmi with an exasperated sigh. She tilted her head as she continued, bemused by a point she felt compelled to repeat. “To claim you couldn’t be further removed from it all, though? As if the role you’re playing isn’t one of the most critical? Really?”

Boa waited for a response from Sunmi, but it never arrived. Their eyes pierced one another for an agonizingly strained moment, after which Boa could only manage a disdainful laugh. “Above all else, Lee Sunmi, you are first and foremost a terrible liar. Not just any liar, either—a liar who has all but forgotten how to respect her elders. A fine display of well-executed irony, to say the least, given the true identity of the woman you used to be.”

Brushing aside her commentary, Sunmi returned the conversation to its original point. “So, what am I to do in regards to Yeojin’s deviation?”

“I already told you.”

“Nothing...? You intend for me to do nothing?”

Boa could only give Sunmi a nod. Coming to her seat, she stood behind it and rested her arms atop its headrest as the younger Archmagus continued. “Just...continue with the supposed course of history as per the Akashic records, even if we’re no longer on track with it? Do you truly consider such a course of action genuinely advisable?”

“That’s right.”

“But I—”

“But nothing.”

Sunmi froze. The highest ranking official personally appointed by the Twelve themselves was peering daggers at her, focused eyes narrowed and primed on her junior with another stern glare that she wasn’t quite used to receiving.

“Don’t waste your time trying to improvise here, Lee Sunmi. You don’t have any other moves to make. Nobody does. Not us, not Yang Hyun-suk, not Jaden Jeong. Not even the Twelve,” Boa announced slowly, her emphasis heavy. “From here on out, the entirety of life as we know it across every conceivable timeline that currently exists or will ever exist…”

Boa paused. Curiously, a small laugh escaped her. A smirk of disbelief crawled onto her face as she grabbed a black blazer off the back of her seat. Sliding her arms through it, she shook her head as she buttoned it closed.

“...well, in a way, you might say that all of it is now at the mercy of what sort of butterfly effect Im Yeojin’s single sidestep might end up having. For all we know, this instance could be our last.”

With Boa’s words looming over her, Sunmi swallowed a lump in . Her firmly rooted distress remained at a peak as the older Archmagus kept her eyes trained on her for a moment, seemingly choosing her words carefully for whatever else she might have had to say. Taeyeon beat her to the punch, however, as she hurriedly grabbed her own jacket off her chair and slid into it herself.

“I’m going to go investigate the Akashic records once more!” she announced, fixing her glasses anew. “There was something we missed, I’m sure of it! A complete deviation of this scale simply must have been accounted for! It’s not at all like the Twelve to not have a plan detailed somewhere for a contingency of this magnitude!”

To no response from Sunmi or Boa, Taeyeon left like a whirlwind, her heels practically slamming against the tiled ground of the Council House’s central meeting floor. Boa only regarded her with a passing look before returning her gaze to Sunmi, spiking her unrest and enticing her to speak. “Is there something else you wish to discuss, Boa?”

“I feel the need to remind you not to get your hopes up.”

Sunmi blinked. She felt Boa’s demeanor shift from that of a strict superior to one of a concerned friend, the shades of her mixed hues becoming glossed over by a gloomy shadow. “We’re off course now, and how it all goes from here is anybody’s guess. However, all the same, there’s plenty that could still end up going just as it was always supposed to, just as the records dictate…”

Walking forward past Sunmi, Boa made it halfway up the stairs towards the exit before stopping. Sunmi turned halfway, following her path. She felt a cold sweat chill her body as Boa’s voice arose again, her tone now markedly remorseful. 

“...including what happens to you.”

Without facing her, Sunmi’s superior reminded her of the inescapable truth, grounding her and ending any fantasies before they could be born. “Don’t let yourself think of this as proof that it won’t still happen as it always has. There’s no guarantee. You need to continue to prepare yourself for what history is supposed to have in store for you, Lee Sunmi, because for all we know, the safety of those twelve girls you care so much about might still depend on it happening. Don’t forget: Life observed—”

“—oblivion never arrived,” Sunmi whispered near inaudibly, finishing Boa’s recitation for her.

The loud clicking of heels took the place of further words. 

Boa left the room with nothing more, leaving a silenced Sunmi to stand in the empty chamber. With little to say and an impossible amount of thoughts blazing through her headspace all at once, the Archmagus could only manage to seat herself in her appointed chair at the grand table. The longer she sat, the more that each and every beat of her heart within her chest started to hurt. Bringing her arms to the table’s surface, Sunmi buried her face in her hands. After a moment, the noiselessness which draped the chamber vanished.

In its place arose muffled echoes of quiet sobbing.

「 ➤➤➤ ★ ➤➤➤ 」

“Hey, what the heck is cosmic variance?”

“Huh? Well, it’s...wait, where’d that question even come from?”

“Look.”

With the sun high above them at another halted pedestrian crossing, an inquisitive Yeojin pointed to the partially visible cover of a book in a nearby woman’s hands—A Hypothetical Basis for Cosmic Variance. Following her finger, Yerim made quick sense of Yeojin’s question.

“Sounds like it’d be something kinda cool,” Yeojin said right before another traffic controller whistle pierced the air. Moving forward with Yerim at her side, her eyes remained stuck on the book’s cover. “Is that, like, you know...a science thing?”

“It’s a scientific concept, yes. Well, maybe not so scientific, depending on who you ask,” Yerim began, arm linked with Yeojin once more as they continued to their destination. “I’ve seen it mentioned in some research papers, and I heard Haseul and Kahei talking about it with Grandmaster Hyuna once. It’s, uh...how do I put it…”

Choosing her words carefully, Yerim paused to gather her thoughts. All the while, Yeojin looked at her expectantly, not anticipating such a response from what she imagined to be a simple question. To Yeojin’s surprise, Yerim began her explanation with a question of her own. “Have you ever heard of eternal recurrence? ”

After some thought, Yeojin shook her head while Yerim led her around the corner and down another block. “Uh, no, I don’t think I have. Doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Eternal recurrence, sometimes referred to as eternal return, is the concept that the multiverse as a whole has been stuck in a loop, and that it’ll continue to loop an infinite number of times,” the girl of fire explained. “Basically, whenever everything ends, when the final reality out there makes it all the way to the finish line and all of existence reaches its conclusion...woosh! Everything just starts back up again.”

“You mean like...a reset button?” Yeojin asked, her interest clearly piqued. “Everything ends, but it actually doesn’t? We start over?”

Yerim gave Yeojin a firm nod. Her smile was telling of the enjoyment she derived from discussing the sciences, much like her sisters. “Pretty much! Time never actually ends, it just wraps back around to the beginning! It’s just like wiping your save data in a video game and then rebooting the console. Pretty crazy, right?”

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Yeojin agreed, admittedly a little overwhelmed by the concept. “What’s that got to do with cosmic variance, though?”

“Well, suppose it were true. Imagine that, somehow, this isn’t actually the first time all of this has happened, and that countless times before, we’ve been in this exact moment, walking to Eyedi’s to meet up with Sooyoung and the others,” Yerim said. “Even if everything is stuck in an infinite loop, what are the chances that everything lines up perfectly with how it’s gone in every previous iteration of the multiverse so far? Like, for example!”

Cutting herself short, Yerim giggled as she suddenly skipped ahead one step. So as to keep up with her and not tumble at her side, Yeojin was awkwardly forced to hastily replicate the motion. Her theoretical example presented, Yerim invited a brewing storm of thought into Yeojin’s mind. “What if we never skipped like that before? What if we’ve never once done that in any previous loop? Or what if we did, but we’re ahead of schedule and we weren’t supposed to do it until the next block? Or what if we were late and we were actually supposed to do it on the last block?”

“I...I think I get it,” Yeojin said slowly, the cogs of her mind piecing it together. “So cosmic variance is basically the chance of something in the current loop being different, and it can be something either entirely new to the cycle or just out of order...”

“Yeah, exactly!”

“But...why cosmic? What’s up with that?”

“Maybe it’s to do with the fact that we wouldn’t even know that we’re doing something different?” Yerim offered, intrigued by a question she never thought to consider herself. “It’s a random chance for something to get mixed up on a universal scale, after all. It’s something we could never possibly have any influence over, and we wouldn’t even know that it was different in the first place.”

“Uh-huh,” Yeojin followed along. A grimace showed itself on her face soon after as she considered it further. “I mean, it sounds neat, but...is there really any proof suggesting it? Parallel realities and alternate timelines are one thing, but the idea of the multiverse being stuck in an infinite loop...I dunno, guess it just kinda sounds like a stretch to me.”

“Some people are fairly adamant in thinking that déjà vu is all the proof we need. You experienced that before, right?”

Yeojin’s pause was simultaneous with the crowd surrounding them stopping at another crossing.

“The weird, sometimes anxious feeling that it’s not the first time you’ve been somewhere or done something, even if you’ve definitely never been there or done it before?”

Death.

Discomforting unease claimed instant dominion over Yeojin’s mind and body alike.

“Sometimes, it even feels like a really convincing memory, and you’re almost sure that you’ve been through it before—”

It sank into her gut, instilling her with a foreboding fear that she couldn’t comprehend. 

The thirteenth, drawn upright.

Something was pulling at the stretches of Yeojin’s consciousness—an unknowable force that she couldn’t make out. It was paralyzing her, producing an overwhelming sensation of existential dread. As if it extended beyond the scope of her physical form, it was an infinitely limitless and overbearingly ubiquitous presence which bled into the recesses into her unconscious. Deeply rooted within her existence itself, she couldn’t understand what it was or why exactly it terrified her to her core, and that, in turn, only made her more anxious.

“—but that’s all it is. A feeling. Just a wild sensation, you know?”

A tender laugh pulled Yeojin from her darkness before she could slip any further. 

It was Yerim next to her, looking at her with a beaming smile that flowed with an excessive amount of warmth. It dispersed the multiplying shades of restlessness within Yeojin, calming her in the way that she was coming to discover only Yerim could manage.

“That’s why lots of folks don’t really consider the idea even remotely scientific. As humans, we just want an explanation behind every crazy phenomenon our brains put us through, even if the concept doesn’t have a reasonable foundation. If you ask me, it’s a neat idea, but I definitely don’t believe it,” Yerim said, her words coated in confidence. “My sisters and Grandmaster Hyuna sure don’t, either. Oh, but don’t you think it’d make for a really cool plot element for a book? Or a game! Wouldn’t that be awesome?!”

“Yeah...yeah, it definitely would.”

“Right?!”

Gradually, Yeojin gathered herself just in time for the traffic guard to beckon the crowd forward. 

Just calm down, Yeojin.

With a series of deep, measured breaths, she shook off the uncertain apprehension that had managed to claim her for what she had hoped would be the last time.

Everything’s fine.

“There it is! Eyedi’s!”

Pulled forward by Yerim, Yeojin was ushered across another street towards the front of a small, unassuming diner. As she entered the homely establishment to enjoy a relaxing outing with her friends, she would remain entirely unaware of it—the fact that her noticing the stranger’s book and her resulting conversation about it with Yerim had never once occurred in any previous instance of history. 

Her introduction to the concept of cosmic variance was, ironically enough, a result of cosmic variance in and of itself.

And thus, mere hours after only just doing so during Yerim’s divination, Im Yeojin had sidestepped once again. Deviating further and further away from the predestined path she was meant to take along the course of history—something that would quickly become the norm for her—a point of no return was reached.

History itself was now set to crumble.