Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 40: The Branch

Oathran and Arkai stood before the tent, two of the most formidable beings on the continent, looking at each other with the shared awkwardness of schoolboys who had just been tossed out of the library by a very strict, very small librarian.

Ah... mutual defeat. Only Cecilia Araceli could shoo them away like they were a scolded puppy and a sunning lizard.

Arkai cleared his throat, the ’formal lord’ in him reasserting itself over ’the eavesdropper’. He placed a hand over his chest and bowed. "Your Majesty... again, thank you for saving me."

Oathran waved a hand, his smile kind. "As you know now, I would’ve died if not for her too. So, all that gratitude should solely be for her."

Arkai nodded, accepting the truth of it, but still thankful to him nonetheless. Then, his brow furrowed as he remembered a specific memory. "Could it be... at that time...?"

Oathran raised his eyebrows. He gave a solemn nod. "Yes. At that time."

The morning Arkai had led his pack across the river and seen Cecilia alone by her fire. He had sensed the powerful, complex scent clinging to her. Oathran’s scent. The pieces clicked.

She hadn’t been on a leisurely camping trip. She had been in the aftermath of a catastrophe, her heart freshly torn from her chest, and the Dragon Lord had been there, in the dirt beside her.

"I was laying close by when Saintess Cecilia had her heart ripped out," Oathran confirmed, his voice low. "It was... quite the destiny."

"I see," Arkai murmured. "Which snowballed into my rescue too." His survival was a direct byproduct of that.

Both men stood in agreement with the conclusion, that Ruby’s prophecy of his death would have been true in a world where that particular snowball had never begun to roll.

"Ah!" Oathran suddenly flinched, a spark of intellectual lightning striking him. His grey eyes widened. "Wait, if my meeting with Saintess Cecilia was snowballed from an earlier event, then—"

A new branch of the temporal mystery! He turned on his heel, intent on bursting back into the tent to share this revolutionary thought, to add his piece to the grand deduction.

His hand had barely hovered over the tent flap when a voice from within stopped him dead, freezing him in a posture of awkward mid-intrusion.

"Yes, Oathran, I’m already there. Don’t come in."

Her voice was... perhaps the verbal equivalent of a rolled-up newspaper. Firm... flat... a bit... threatening...

Oathran’s hand hung in the air. His whole body was locked in an awkward, eager lunge. Behind him, Arkai’s tail, which had begun to wag in excitement, froze mid-swish.

"Ahem..."

Oathran slowly straightened his posture, smoothing the front of his tunic, fooling the universe that he had meant to strike that pose all along. Arkai mimicked the movement, attempting to look as if they were simply two lords engaged in a stately discussion about the weather.

Not at all two overeager geniuses who had just been scolded by a higher tier genius! Nope!

"I still don’t get it. Is there something I must know...?" Arkai blinked.

"I was thinking about our meeting seventeen years ago, Lord Dawnoro," Oathran sighed. He gestured with his head, inviting Arkai to follow him on a walk away from the tent. At least... a safe distance where their chaotic brainwaves wouldn’t risk another interruption.

She was surely already a dozen steps ahead of them, after all, while they were still fumbling at the entrance.

Oathran knew his presence needed to be hidden. The newly arrived "rescuers", or... well, the Arctic Werewolves, were Delanivis men, an extension of Ruby’s will and ambition. To reveal a Dragon Lord on the scene would turn a political power grab into a celestial incident.

With a subtle flex of his power, he softened the otherworldly edges of his form. The proud horns receded, the distinctly pointed ears rounded to a more mundane shape. He became a strikingly handsome, powerful man. But one who could, at a glance, be mistaken for an unusually majestic human.

He wasn’t the only one.

Arkai’s mind was churning with the political algebra of his near-miss demise. Ruby’s prophecy hadn’t been a general warning of disaster, but a specific, post-mortem announcement of his death. She hadn’t wanted to prevent the tragedy, but more so wanting to capitalize on the resulting power vacuum.

If he had truly died, the race to seize his lands would have been between two factions. The invading Arctic Wolves and his own nephew, Arzhen. Ah... he needed to speak to Anton, and soon. The old tiger was slipping, but he surely wasn’t blind, right?

"If I remember correctly," Arkai began, pacing as he pieced together an older puzzle, "there’s news seventeen years ago that you visited the Saintess on her coronation, and asked her about something unknown. You... ordered everyone to leave, after all." He glanced at Oathran. "Then, you left satisfied."

"I did," Oathran confirmed, his gaze turning inward toward that fateful day.

"Which means... the branch should’ve happened earlier..." Arkai muttered, following the thread of causality backward.

"Yes." Oathran picked it up, his voice gaining momentum. "Didn’t you say that before the coronation, the other Saintess who should’ve been crowned suddenly disappeared...?"

"Yes, so..." Arkai’s eyes lit up, his train of thought accelerating. "If that Saintess was crowned inste—"

"—that means I wouldn’t meet Saintess Cecilia—" Oathran interjected.

"—and you would’ve died—" Arkai pointed at him.

"—and you would’ve died too—" Oathran pointed right back.

"AAAAAAaaaaaahhh..." they breathed in unison, fingers aimed at each other. They paused, a wave of triumphant excitement swelling, before they quickly curbed it, each man forcibly calming his expression.

Nope. We must not look too pleased with ourselves. The lady in the tent is still several leagues ahead, and stop wishing to show off to her!

Awkwardness descended again.

"So, if the other Saintess didn’t disappear... Cecilia would’ve..."

They trailed off. Cecilia... what would have become of a brilliant, heart-full commoner if the saintly title had never been thrust upon her? That was a mystery only Cecilia herself could unravel. But in the narrative Ruby seemed to be working from, Cecilia Araceli, Saintess of Iondora, effectively ’didn’t exist.’

Forget that for now. They had found the root.

How did Ruby disappear?

That was the genesis of the branch! The very first fork in the road!

If it were divine foresight, the gods would have seen Cecilia. If it were a vision of a possible future, why show Ruby such a specific, already-foiled outcome? But if it were a memory... a memory of what actually happened in another version of reality... then every inconsistency makes sense.

She saw what did happen once and mistook it for what will happen...

...if Cecilia never became a saintess.

And at the same time... if Ruby became the saintess from the start instead.

"AAAAAAaaaaaahhh..." they pointed at each other again, another synchronized epiphany. Then, remembering themselves, they forcibly settled down... again.

They were clearly still several laps behind the master theorist in the tent...

"I should... look for what happened seventeen years ago to that other Saintess," Arkai said. Action was better than awkward silence.

"That will be helpful, thank you," Oathran said, bowing his head slightly with a grateful smile.

Then, they shared a chuckle.

...

...

...

Silence. Almost awkward again.

But then, Oathran turned fully to Arkai, curious. He asked a question that came from so far out in left field it might as well have been launched from another continent.

"Are you attracted to my wife?"

Arkai froze.

Every muscle in his body locked. His fluffy ears stood straight up. His tail poofed to twice its size.

MY LORD, WHY ARE YOU THROWING A METEOR TOWARDS ME?!