I woke up the next morning, feeling... different. My body, which had been aching from the concussion and time lag just the day before, now felt light and energized. I stretched my arms, expecting the usual stiffness, but there was none. I jumped out of bed, testing my legs, and even did a little spin. I felt good.
I left my room and found Hana in the kitchen, humming softly as she cooked breakfast. Ren was at the table, sipping coffee and scrolling through something on his tablet. The smell of food filled the air, and for a moment, I felt a wave of warmth. I was home. Safe. Loved.
"Morning," I said, sliding into a chair at the table.
Hana turned, smiling. "Morning, Shinra. How are you feeling?"
"Actually... great," I said, still a little surprised. "Like, really great. I thought I’d be a mess after yesterday, but I feel like I could run a marathon."
Hana chuckled, placing a bowl of cereal and a glass of milk in front of me. "That’s the medicine I gave you last night. And a couple of vaccines, too."
I froze, my spoon halfway to my mouth. "Wait... you drugged me in my sleep?!"
Hana shrugged, completely unfazed.
"You needed it. The future might’ve eradicated most diseases, but here in the past, you’re basically a walking target for every virus and bacteria out there. I just gave you a little... boost."
Shinra’s eyes widened, and his face turned into a comically exaggerated expression of shock. His features somehow seemed to shrink, his eyes becoming huge, round circles, and his mouth dropping open in a perfect "O" shape. He looked like a chibi character straight out of an anime.
"YOU DRUGGED ME IN MY SLEEP?!" I shouted, my voice rising several octaves.
Ren, who had been quietly sipping his coffee, suddenly choked, spitting it out in a spray. He doubled over, laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face. "Oh my god," he wheezed, clutching his sides. "The look on your face! Priceless!"
Hana tried to keep a straight face, but soon she was laughing too, her hands covering her mouth as her shoulders shook. "I didn’t *drug* you! It was medicine! Medicine!"
Shinra’s chibi face somehow became even more exaggerated, his cheeks puffing out like a cartoon character.
"MEDICINE?! YOU SNEAKED INTO MY ROOM AND INJECTED ME WITH GOD KNOWS WHAT!"
Ren was now fully on the floor, rolling around in laughter. "She’s a doctor, kid! She knows what she’s doing!"
"DOESN’T MAKE IT ANY LESS CREEPY!" I yelled, my tiny arms flailing.
Hana finally managed to calm down enough to speak. "Alright, alright, I’m sorry. Next time, I’ll wake you up first. But you needed it, okay? You’re welcome."
My face slowly returned to normal, though I still looked mildly offended. "You’re lucky I like you," I muttered, finally taking a bite of my cereal.
---
The Breakfast That Hit Home
Once the laughter died down, Hana brought over a plate of food for me. It was a dish I hadn’t seen in years—okonomiyaki, a savory Japanese pancake filled with cabbage, pork, and topped with a special sauce and bonito flakes. But it wasn’t just any okonomiyaki. The way it was made, with the sauce drizzled in a perfect spiral and the bonito flakes arranged in a specific pattern, was exactly how Uncle Shizumori used to make it.
My heart sank as I stared at the dish. My face, which had been bright with laughter just moments ago, now fell into a somber expression.
Hana noticed immediately. "Shinra? What’s wrong?"
I poked at the food with my fork, my voice soft. "Uncle Shizumori... he used to make this for me. Exactly like this. The sauce, the flakes... everything."
Hana and Ren exchanged a glance. Hana sat down beside me, her tone gentle. "Tell us about him."
I hesitated, then chuckled weakly. "Well, the first time I visited his house without telling him beforehand, he locked me up and almost blew me up with a bomb. Thought I was an intruder."
Hana’s eyes widened. "He what ?!"
Ren leaned forward, intrigued. "Did he really?"
I nodded, a small smile creeping onto my face. "Yeah. He doesn’t get many visitors, and when I do visit, I always let him know ahead of time. So, I guess it was kinda reasonable. Good thing he looked at my face before pulling the trigger, though."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Hana looked horrified, but Ren burst out laughing. "Sounds like my kind of guy!"
I smirked, pointing at them. "And yet you two locked me up and almost shot me too. Guess it runs in the family."
Hana turned bright red, stammering.
"W-Well, you knew my full name out of nowhere! And you were acting so suspicious! And Ren—he’s got enemies from his army days and his stock market stuff. We had to be careful!"
Ren nodded, trying to look serious but failing miserably. "Yeah, I was just protecting Hana. That’s all."
Hana rolled her eyes. "As if I’d ever need protection from an old geezer like you."
Ren gasped, clutching his chest dramatically. "Old geezer? I’m in my prime!"
The three of us burst into laughter again, the tension melting away. But as the laughter faded, my smile turned wistful. "All jokes aside... being here with you guys is amazing. But I really do miss Uncle Shizumori."
---
The Leap into the Unknown
Meanwhile, at the lab in the original timeline, where Uncle Shizumori stands frozen, staring at the time machine’s monitor. The God Particle pulses erratically, casting jagged shadows across the room. The air crackles with unstable energy, and the machine’s hum has turned into a low, ominous growl.
Shizumori’s gaze shifts to the monitor on the time machine’s control panel. The screen displays a stream of data—coordinates, timestamps, and energy readings. His heart sinks as he realizes what has happened. Shinra hasn’t arrived just a few years in the past, as planned. The readings show he has gone back decades—far earlier than they had intended.
"Karen," Shizumori says, his voice calm but urgent. "What just happened?"
The AI’s voice echoes from a nearby terminal, its tone clinical and detached.
"The God Particle has entered an unstable state. Its behavior is unpredictable. Initial analysis suggests that the time travel event caused a feedback loop, destabilizing the particle's quantum coherence."
Shizumori clenches his fists. Shinra was brilliant, but he was still just a kid. Decades in the past? He wouldn’t know how to handle that. The CEO was too powerful, too cunning. Shinra would need help—help only Shizumori could provide.
"How long until the God Particle stabilizes?" Shizumori asks, his mind racing.
"Estimated stabilization time: 14 to 21 days. However, the original timeline will begin to fade as soon as Shinra arrives in the past. You do not have 14 days."
Shizumori’s jaw tightens. He had anticipated risks, but this was beyond anything he had imagined. He glances at the machine, then at the AI terminal.
"If I enter the machine now, while the God Particle is unstable, what are my chances of survival?"
Karen pauses, as if calculating the enormity of the question.
"Survival probability: less than 0.8%. Probability of arriving unharmed: less than 0.01%. The unstable God Particle will break down your body into subatomic particles, connecting them through what I will refer to as 'God's Web.' Your senses may remain intact, but the rearrangement of your molecular structure could result in severe deformities, disabilities, or immediate death."
Shizumori’s mind races. He had always been a man of logic, but now, faced with the impossible, he feels a strange calm. "If I can control the rearrangement of my molecules, could I increase my chances of survival?"
"Theoretically, yes. However, human comprehension of subatomic rearrangement is currently impossible. Your brain lacks the capacity to process such information in real-time."
A faint smile tugs at the corners of Shizumori’s lips.
"What if I could increase my IQ? What if I could make my brain capable of comprehending the subatomic state?"
Karen pauses again, longer this time.
"The human brain is not designed for such tasks. However, if you could somehow restructure your neural pathways to process information at a quantum level, you might gain the ability to manipulate your own molecular structure. The probability of success is negligible."
"Negligible," Shizumori repeats, his voice steady. "But not zero."
He turns to the terminal, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "Give me everything you have on neural restructuring. Quantum cognition. Anything that could help me survive this."
Karen complies, flooding the screen with data. Shizumori absorbs it all, his mind working faster than it ever had before. He doesn’t have time to second-guess himself. Every second he hesitates is a second closer to the original timeline’s collapse.
He spends hours, solving equations frantically, memorizing every little detail, consuming tons of caffiene and lastly, he tells karen to mark the conversation they had just now as an emergency distress signal to Nishi Shinra... The man who built her.
Finally, he steps toward the machine, his resolve unshakable.
"If I die, I die. But if I survive... I might be the only one who can stop what’s coming."
He activates the machine, the unstable God Particle roaring to life. The air around him crackles with energy as his body begins to break apart, molecule by molecule. Pain sears through him, but he focuses on the data, on the equations, on the impossible task of rearranging his own mind.
As his consciousness fragments, he feels something shift. His thoughts, once bound by the limits of human understanding, begin to expand. He can see the God’s Web now—a vast, intricate network of particles, each one connected to the next. He can feel the spacetime continuum flowing around him, a liquid tapestry of past, present, and future.
He focuses on his brain, on the neural pathways that are now his to reshape. With each adjustment, his comprehension grows. He can see the patterns, the connections, the infinite possibilities. His IQ skyrockets, far beyond anything a human mind was meant to achieve.
Time ceases to exist. He is no longer in the lab, no longer in the timeline he had known. He is outside of it all, floating in a dimension where past, present, and future are one. He can see Shinra in the past, struggling to adapt. He can see the CEO, hidden in the shadows, plotting his next move. He can see the war, the forests burning, the scientists dying.
To him, the flow of space and time is nothing but a river, flowing endlessy... Connected to a web of strings that connect all timelines, all particles, all mass, everything that ever existed, exists and will ever exist. He can see everything, change everything. He can rewrite history itself and no one would know.
And he knows what he has to do.
---
End of Chapter 5