"A test?" Sagres's heart sank again.
"It's simple." The future Sagres casually gestured with his wand, his gaze falling on Sagres's hand. "For example, I could cut off one of your fingers. The little finger would do. It's insignificant. Then I'd return to my own time and see whether my little finger is still intact."
He slowly explained the details of this rather interesting experiment.
"If my finger is still there, that proves you're the exception. Whatever I do to you in the past won't carry over to the future me. In that case, I'll come back here and finish what I started by killing you."
"But if my finger disappears as well..."
He shrugged.
"Then that proves the rule still applies and you're not an exception. Naturally, I can't risk destroying myself by killing you. Fair enough, isn't it?"
Sagres fell silent.
He stared at the other version of himself, so completely self-assured, while absurdity and cold dread intertwined in his chest.
After a long moment, he spoke again, returning to the most important question.
"Why? Why are you so determined to kill yourself? Aren't I your past self?"
The smile on the future Sagres's face faded slightly, replaced by a weariness and disgust that seemed to have accumulated over countless years.
"Why?"
He repeated the word with a mocking edge.
"Because you, or rather, we, are going to cause a great deal of trouble in the future. Endless, irritating trouble."
He leaned forward slightly, his gaze sharpening.
"You'll turn the entire world upside down and leave it in a complete mess. You'll think you're correcting mistakes and putting everything back on the right track, but what happens instead? You'll only make things worse. More difficult to repair."
He paused.
"Of course, I can't deny that along the way, we did accomplish a few... earth-shattering 'great deeds'."
He placed particular emphasis on the last two words, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Sagres felt a surge of helplessness.
"But all of that is in the future. None of it has happened yet. I haven't done anything at this point, and you want to kill me for 'crimes' I haven't even committed?"
"This moment is where everything begins!"
The future Sagres's voice rose slightly.
"It's like a wall that keeps cracking. I'm already exhausted from constantly patching up the messes we left behind. Now I just want to solve the problem once and for all."
His tone became calm again, but the logic behind his words was twisted.
"As for killing you... I'm the one being hurt anyway, so it hardly counts as indiscriminate killing, does it? Sacrificing the present for the peace of the future seems like a worthwhile trade to me."
As his words faded, the study fell into deathly silence.
Two Sagreses faced one another.
One came from the future, carrying murderous intent and years of exhaustion.
The other stood in the present, facing desperation and injustice.
They stared at each other as silence spread throughout the study, broken only by the uneasy crackling of the flames in the fireplace.
The standing Sagres calmly studied the other version of himself.
There was no longer any fear in those identical eyes, only a clarity that bordered on cruelty.
He slowly spoke, breaking the suffocating silence.
"So according to your plan, I have no choice. I can only cooperate with this test and then accept one of two outcomes: either I'm lucky enough to survive, or you return and kill me after confirming the result. Is that correct?"
The future Sagres nodded slightly, seemingly pleased by his understanding.
"An excellent summary. I'll cut off your finger, then return to my own time and confirm the result. After all, we both need an answer."
That faintly malicious smile returned to his face.
"Oh, right. A friendly reminder."
"After I leave, you'd better not immediately use magic to heal or reattach your finger. You know perfectly well that if you do, then when I return to the future, I'll see an intact hand."
He smiled.
"And that would tell me one thing: killing my past self has no consequences."
"In that case, I'll come back immediately to finish the job."
He leaned forward, his tone carrying a playful menace.
"You wouldn't do something so foolish as to seek your own death, would you? After all, staying alive is what matters most. Enduring a minor imperfection in exchange for a chance to live seems reasonable enough."
The standing Sagres listened quietly, his face expressionless.
He remained silent for a few seconds, as though seriously considering the suggestion.
Then he raised his eyes and looked directly at his future self.
"Why not?"
The smile on the future Sagres's face slowly froze.
The standing Sagres continued in the same steady tone.
"If I cooperate with your experiment, then whether I live or die depends entirely on what you observe. You remain in an absolutely safe position, taking no risk at all, while I can do nothing but wait passively for a possible death."
He gently shook his head.
"I don't like that."
"So let me be perfectly clear. No matter which finger you cut off, the moment you leave, I will reattach it immediately and without hesitation. The only result you will ever observe is an intact finger."
"But that result will have been artificially altered by me. It will be unreliable."
He paused, watching the storm gather in the other Sagres's eyes, then delivered his conclusion one word at a time.
"You will never obtain the true answer from this test."
The future Sagres narrowed his eyes.
For the first time, the mask of ease cracked, and a flash of anger appeared in his gaze.
"Are you not afraid of death?! Or are you bluffing?"
The standing Sagres suddenly laughed, a faint trace of mockery in his smile.
"Why are you asking me that? Don't you already know the answer?"
Without giving the other man a chance to interrupt, he continued calmly.
"Let's examine the choices again."
"Option one: I cooperate with you. The possible outcomes are: A, the rule still applies, and we both remain safe. A win-win. B, I am the exception, you return and kill me. I die."
"Option two: I refuse to cooperate and reattach my finger. The possible outcomes are: A, the rule still applies, but you can only observe a false result. You kill me, and we both die. A lose-lose. B, I am the exception, you return and kill me. I die."
His gaze sharpened.
"Do you see the problem?"
"Once you accept the premise that I will definitely reattach my finger, the intact finger you observe could mean that the rule still applies, or it could mean that I really am the exception."
"You can't tell which."
"You can never be certain."
"In other words," the standing Sagres concluded, "I may not be able to improve my own chances of survival through this choice, but I can use my actions to turn what was originally a risk-free experiment for you into one where we both share the uncertainty."
"I've changed the situation from one where the outcomes are either 'we both live' or 'I die' into one where the outcomes become 'we both die' or 'I die' or, if you're rational enough, 'we both live'."
He looked at the increasingly gloomy expression on the other Sagres's face and asked softly,
"This is one of the most basic models in game theory. Have you forgotten even something this fundamental after living for so long?"
The standing Sagres looked genuinely curious.
"Or... are you simply pretending not to understand, hoping fear will make me submit?"
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