In the quiet hills outside the city of Veldmar, there sat an observatory.
It was not a particularly famous one, nor particularly grand in size compared to the great dome of the Royal Astronomical Institute further east, but it had its advantages: it was old, its equipment was well-maintained, and most importantly, it sat far enough from the city lights that the sky above it was genuinely, perfectly dark.
Which, as of late, was becoming less of an advantage and more of a problem.
.
.
[Zkur's POV - Veldmar Observatory, 1:14 AM]
"This is fascinating!"
Said with all the warmth and excitement of someone who had just found a rare insect.
Zkur kept his eye glued to the telescope's eyepiece, his green scaled tail flicking behind him like a metronome keeping time for thoughts that were moving too fast.
"Or ominous", said Duno, from his chair in the corner, not looking up from the logbook in his lap.
"I'm with Duno here Zkur, it's pretty scary," added Mila from across the room, her chin resting on her hand as she stared at the ceiling, her tail swishing from side to side.
"The two aren't mutually exclusive, y'know?" Zkur replied, finally pulling back from the telescope just long enough to look at them with the kind of grin that only researchers get when they are about to say something alarming in a cheerful voice.
He gestured broadly at the viewing screen he had linked to the scope, where a map of the night sky was displayed, peppered with small dots of white light — with a very conspicuous section of absolute, complete nothing.
"The stars from 100,000 light-years away and beyond have been disappearing one by one for the last 245 million years, according to history. And now," he pointed at the edge of the dark section, "this mysterious darkness is slowly trickling to the stars 99,000 light-years away from us!"
"Doesn't it tickle your brains as to why such a phenomenon is happening? We would be the first people to be recognised for such a discovery!" He said it with much enthusiasm
Duno finally looked up.
"More like the first to get killed," he said flatly. "And besides, they wouldn't believe us in the first place, and even if they do, they'd do anything to prevent public fear."
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. "It's been publicly accepted for the last 10,000 years that the stars within 100k lightyears aren't touched by it. People built their whole sense of safety around that fact. Imagine how the public reacts when we tell them it moved."
The room went quiet for a moment.
"I believe we should give it a shot," said Mila, who had sat up sometime during Duno's speech and was now watching both of them with a thoughtful expression. "We'll inform the higher-ups about this, anonymously, of course." A small pause. "I have a few connections underground to accomplish this, if you know what I mean."
The two looked at her.
Then at each other.
Then back at her.
"I keep forgetting that part about you, mostly because you never use your privileges majority of the time," said Duno.
To which Zkur nodded in agreement.
"And I like you for that," Mila replied to Duno as she gently brushed his leg with tail, her eyes holding just a second too long.
"Uggh, no flirting in the workplace please," Zkur made a sound like he was swallowing something unpleasant.
"That was the bottom of the barrel of flirting, are you jealous?" Mila smiled at him.
"Me?! I'm jealous?" He put a hand on his chest in an exaggerated gesture, as if he was offended.
"How would you feel if me and my husband were flirting in front of you two? In fact—" he raised an eyebrow, "aren't YOU jealous? Because the last time I remember, I actually married the one I love, unlike some people."
He glanced pointedly at Duno.
"Ughh, you don't need to remind me of this idiot," Mila said, looking at Duno with an accusatory look.
"Guys, let's get back to work please," Duno said with the energy of a man who had had this conversation many times before and fully intended to keep losing it. "And Mila, I already told you to stop, I don't want your Godfather to come for my ass."
He shivered faintly at what appeared to be a memory.
"Oh come on, he's not that bad, in fact he actually likes you," she countered.
"Doubt it."
"And besides, we're both perfectly single, I'm smart, you're smart, and I love you, what more could you need? People would kill to be with me, you know?" She tugged his sleeve.
'Exactly', Duno thought, smiling neutrally and using a respectable amount of willpower to not say that out loud. 'And I would be directly in their line of scope.'
"Alright, get a room you love-newts," Zkur said.
The door swung open before they could continue, and the three of them turned toward it.
Bonnabie stood in the frame, brown scales gleaming warmly under the hall light, holding a large plate stacked with sandwiches of varying heights and ingredients.
"Who wants some midnight snack?" She tilted the plate toward them like an offering.
.
.
.
The four of them ate in comfortable silence for a while, the observatory filled with the small sounds of chewing and the faint mechanical hum of the electronics on the observatory.
"Man, the Old Humans were geniuses when it comes to food," Bonnabie said eventually, patting her stomach with genuine reverence. "Thank Godzilla for his Kaiju Crystal."
The three nodded and agreed in their different ways.
"I can't even imagine if the world didn't have access to Kaiju Crystals," Zkur replied between bites. "Civilization wouldn't have emerged to be as strong as today."
"Kaiju Crystals," Duno repeated, slightly thoughtful. "Those things that can store a Kaiju's memories, right? I never really dabbled on them."
"Me neither," said Zkur, shrugging. "Although Bonnabie might know more."
"Yes I do," Bonnabie replied, fixing her glasses.
"It is an external organ that helps in the creation and conversion of a Kaiju's energy and nutrients. It can also store random memories of the world, as well as the Kaiju's own memories with the latter being protected by the Kaiju itself, of course."
"It can also help in communicating with those giants, as we can access their memories with the Kaiju's permission, assuming they have a Miko that we can also speak to." She finished with a bite of her sandwich.
"Mmmm. Truly a fascinating thing, those Kaiju Crystals," said Mila, nibbling on hers.
"Everything about this world is fascinating," Zkur agreed, looking at his sandwich.
A small silence followed
"Some of it just happens to be more terrifying than fascinating."
None of them said anything to that.
It was Duno who eventually stood up, sandwich still in hand, and walked toward the observatory window. He didn't look at the map on the viewing screen. He looked at the actual sky, out through the glass, where the stars were.
Or rather, where they should have been.
The darkness on the edge of what was visible did not look different from ordinary night sky to the naked eye.
The absence was too far away, too gradual across millions of years to register as anything other than a fact in a logbook.
But he knew what was inside it.
"The 99,000 light-year stars are next, aren't they," he said.
It wasn't a question.
Zkur didn't answer immediately. He looked at his screen, at the very precise edge of the dark boundary, and said nothing for several seconds.
"...Yeah," he said, finally. "Probably within the next few centuries, give or take."
Duno nodded slowly.
"Right."
The four of them stayed like that for a moment, three of them looking at the map, one of them looking at the actual sky, all of them thinking the same thing and choosing not to say it.
Mila set her sandwich down.
"I'm making the call," she said quietly.
.
.
.
She stepped out into the hall, and through the observatory's thin walls, the others could faintly hear the sound of a device being tapped, a tone, a pause, a voice on the other end. Too muffled to make out words. Short. Brief.
She returned inside less than two minutes later.
"Done?" Duno asked.
"Done." She picked her sandwich back up.
Zkur glanced at her.
"What did they say?"
Mila looked at the screen for a moment.
Then at the window.
Then back at her food.
"They said "Finally", I tried to get more information as to why they said that but they just replied that they'll take care of informing the higher ups anonymously" she said.
She didn't elaborate further
Zkur opened his mouth and closed it immediately, deciding with uncharacteristic wisdom, not to push further.
Duno's eyes sharpened and Bonabie was outright scared
""F-finally"? You mean they knew but just needed outside confirmation?" she said shakily
"Maybe?"
"Probably"
"Definitely"
Hearing that the three of them had different answers, they burst into a kind of quiet laughter, it was the laughter they needed to calm the nerves.
"Ok, let's just get back to work" Duno suggested
And so the hours passed, sandwiches were finished, notes were written.
Bonnabie fell asleep in her chair at around 4 AM, while Zkur kept working at the telescope.
Duno filled three more pages of the logbook with careful, precise numbers that described something he did not fully want to understand.
Mila sat by the window, looking at the stars, thinking of what could be the cause of the darkness moving in.
Somewhere below the hills, the city of Veldmar slept, Its lights were warm and orange and pointed at the ground, like they always were, and no one was looking up.
No one needed to.
Not yet.
.
.
.
And somewhere far from observatories and logbooks and the quiet weight of numbers that don't add up.
In a dark cave at the top of a cliff, carved halfway into the rock of a forest that was only beginning to settle after the fear of the previous night.
A black dragon was sleeping.
Deeply. Peacefully.
Its scales still carried the faintest hum of electricity, the residue of a skill discovered in panic and not yet fully understood.
It dreamed of nothing in particular.
Outside its cave, the stars over the forest were bright and plentiful, the way they had always been for every creature that had ever looked up at them from this part of the world.
For now.
----
A/N: You know when I said in my long ass rant that this would be the only Fanfic I'd be making?....well that was a fucking lie.
I didn't even plan to make them, it's just Ideas that kept swimming in my head and wouldn't leave until I've written it, though it's gone by the time I write the title and synopsis.
So now I've got like 5 other Fanfics than this one just sitting there, they're just ideas, mind you, except for one which already has 10 Chapters with at least 2k words each, while the other 4 don't have a single chapter to them yet.
Anyways, here are the titles:
[Megumi Fushiguro: Starting Danmachi.]
(This is the one with 10 Chapters, planning on releasing this soon)
Synopsis: He was born with the most POTENTIAL, but he failed to deliver in the end. What if he receives memories from a fan (LARPer) who knew major information about the Jujutsu Kaisen Series, and so, armed with this incomplete knowledge, he resolves to become strong and change his [Potential Man] status, but-
"Why am I in another world entirely?"
---
The following are just ideas, titles and synopsis. If you want to take them, please let me know. I wanna read them, because at the bottom of my heart, I am a reader, not a writer:
---
[In MHA, but my Cursed Technique is Hamon?]
The Ten Shadows Technique, POTENTIALLY one of the strongest Cursed Techniques in Jujutsu Kaisen, it is a tech- Wait, why does my system show it as [The Ten Jojo's Technique]? And what's with Technique number 2? [Nigerundayo]? (MC is Kaminari)
---
[In MHA as Jane Juliet (Ryu Ishigori Template Card)].
Reborn as Yuga Aoyama, but instead of the usual Navel Laser, It "Evolves" into Pompadour Hair [Granite Blast].
---
[Danmachi, but I have 0.1% of a Space Monkey's Talent and Potential.]
Reborn as a Saiyan, but not even as a full-fledged saiyan or at the very least it's hybrid form, no, I am simply a 0.1% Saiyan, that's it, not even that, even my potential and talent got wrecked into just 0.1%, even my future children weren't exempt to this as they only get the permanently locked 0.1% in everything that is a Saiyan, but hey, at least it's 0.1% Goku's Potential, it's ok right? No?
Fuck You Chaos Gacha.
---
[I'm a Water Bender, but not really.]
Reborn as the Twin Brother of Sokka with an ant's potential for waterbending, but I'll make do with what I have, you know what that Old Man said: "If you can only do one thing, hone it to perfection. Hone it to the utmost limit!", and so I shall perfect my measly waterbending into a Flowing Fist That Crushes Rock! (Ryuusui Gansai Ken/One Punch Man, Silver Fang/Bang's Martial Arts from scratch.)
----
If you're expecting chapter 27 next week, I'm sorry for being a bad author/writer but you'll have to wait untill I feel like it