Soon, something caught his attention and he turned his head.
A superhero flew by at high speed, much faster than the others. Yet for Kaito, she moved almost in slow motion.
Noticing the classic red and blue colors, his heart skipped a beat: he thought it was Superman.
But looking closer, he realized it was a woman.
For a moment he thought it might be Supergirl, but after checking her suit and the emblem she wore, he understood it wasn't.
Still, he couldn't quite place her. He stood there thinking, mentally running through every superhero universe he knew until he finally found a match.
Majestia.
A superheroine who was basically like Superman, but female. From the universe of the animated series Miraculous Ladybug.
"So I'm in Ladybug… This is going to be easier than I thought."
After all, it didn't matter how many superheroes existed here or how powerful they were.
The world's most important artifacts were in the hands of two fourteen-year-old teenagers.
In that series, there were beings called Kwamis, living incarnations of universal concepts.
With the creation of the universe came the Kwami of Creation; with destruction, the Kwami of Destruction… and so on.
These beings lived in higher dimensions, and to interact with humans, they used magical objects called Miraculous.
Those objects, besides giving them physical form in this world, granted powers to their bearers.
The protagonists, Ladybug and Cat Noir, carried the Miraculous of Creation (earrings) and the Miraculous of Destruction (a ring).
Even though the show was aimed at teenagers and focused on the daily life of the main characters as they hid their identities and fought villains, there was a key detail:
By uniting both Miraculous and speaking a keyword, it was possible to make a wish.
That's right. Magical objects capable of granting wishes, in the hands of two high school kids.
While Kaito reflected on how absurd this world was and how easy the mission seemed, something unexpected happened.
Beside him, a portal of pale blue and white tones opened, and out stepped a girl in a superhero suit, decorated with bunny ears and details.
Kaito immediately went on guard. However, the girl didn't attack.
Instead, she looked straight at him, with a spark of hope in her eyes.
"Can you really save us?"
"Save you?" Kaito repeated, a bit confused.
"You said you could save us… from those black creatures that appeared. I wanted to ask more, but you disappeared. You told me to find you here."
Kaito only took a second to understand. After all, no one knows himself better than he does.
He had forgotten for a moment, but among the characters of this series there was also Alyx, or Bunnyx as her hero name, who could travel through time.
The power system in Miraculous was so strange that, while the protagonist could barely fix objects or create random things, a secondary heroine could travel across the entire timeline.
Though that didn't matter now. What mattered was that, just as he didn't remember, apparently his future self didn't either, but somehow right before vanishing, Kaito had remembered Bunnyx existed and offered help.
"I can do it," Kaito replied confidently.
"How? We tried everything…"
"First, take me to see them."
He wanted to see those creatures for himself. Koneko had told him how dangerous they were, but nothing replaced seeing it with his own eyes.
"Why do you want to see them?" Bunnyx asked, a bit suspicious.
"I'll explain later. Just take me."
She hesitated for a few seconds but ended up nodding.
Kaito was a little surprised by how easily she agreed.
Through the portal Bunnyx opened, they entered a sort of completely white burrow, dotted with dozens of floating holes.
They looked like half-working TV screens, with distorted signals.
Bunnyx approached one of them and touched it. At that moment, the image stabilized.
It showed Paris. At first, everything seemed calm… until the sky split open in a huge crack from which giant black tentacles emerged.
"That was the first one," Bunnyx explained.
Then, she waved her hand, fast-forwarding the scene like a video.
Dozens of heroes appeared, fighting that thing. Some fired laser beams, others attacked in close combat; others used magic.
As Bunnyx kept forwarding, Kaito noticed the sun rose and set several times. At least five days passed before they managed to defeat the monster.
"But that wasn't the end… only the beginning."
Bunnyx switched to another screen.
All over the world, smaller cracks began to open, though they were still dangerous.
The black creatures attacked in waves, and little by little, the heroes fell.
"One day, something changed… something changed us," Bunnyx said, leading him to another image.
Now the situation was different. Cities lay in ruins. Desperation ruled.
And then, hope didn't come from a hero, but from an ordinary person.
Suddenly, thousands of people began to awaken abilities. A system that boosted their power.
"Thanks to that, we gained a small advantage… but they came back. Stronger each time."
Another screen showed the next disaster.
The creatures, which before required all the heroes to join forces to defeat, were now just pawns.
The real threats, gigantic entities, destroyed entire cities in a single blow.
Even so, humanity resisted until the very end.
Though fewer and fewer survived. Though it seemed impossible. They never gave up.
"And this is the end…"
Bunnyx showed him one last image.
A devastated planet. The number of survivors worldwide barely reached four digits.
People who, by their strength, would have been gods in the past, but who now could only hide to avoid being hunted.
But that day, even hiding wasn't enough.
A creature the size of a continent appeared in the sky.
All the survivors united, fighting with everything they had left… but it was useless.
They were slaughtered in an instant.
Only a single survivor remained.
"Only her… traveling to the past again and again, trying to change destiny… without success."
Kaito looked at Bunnyx. He understood why she was so willing to help.
It was because she no longer had any other hope.
Then she asked him, almost in a broken voice:
"Can you really… stop them?"
"I don't know," Kaito answered honestly.
Bunnyx didn't get angry. She lowered her gaze, resigned, as the light of hope faded from her eyes.
"But… you said you could…"
"It's not that I can't, it's that I still don't know how."
She stayed silent.
"Tell me," Kaito asked, "did something happen recently that changed your timeline?"
"Yes…" Bunnyx nodded, "A week ago something altered the past, changing the entire future. This future we see technically no longer exists. We can only observe it thanks to my ability."
'A week ago,' Kaito thought.
Right at the moment when the Lords were summoned. As an external force, they weren't part of the original destiny.
Bunnyx said "a week ago" because, from her perspective, it had happened then. Though for Kaito, it had been just a few hours.
Confusing… but that's how time was. Especially in Miraculous Ladybug.
Kaito didn't dwell on it and kept speaking.
"It's ironic," he said, looking at the floating screens, "the only one who survived… is the only one who no longer has hope."
"What do you mean?" Alyx asked.
"The reason the timeline changed is simple. We… the ones who arrived a week ago from your perspective… come from another world."
He paused and continued:
"I've visited other worlds, and the same thing happened there."
"Did they survive?" Bunnyx asked, clinging to a last thread of hope.
"No," Kaito shook his head.
Then he told her about Koneko and everything she had explained to him.
"So… you could save this world, somehow?"
Kaito looked her in the eyes and nodded.
"We should be able to, though I still don't know how."
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)