While Jonathan strolled through the weird floating circle of land, Satoshi and Yun Zhe listened in to Manager's story. Upon seeing the not-so-hidden memory of Jonathan, they realized that his actions were a tad bit justified since he practically witnessed someone being murdered in front of him. Well, while the murder was taking it too far, Satoshi and Yun Zhe kind of understood Jonathan's actions after putting themselves in his shoes.
As it turned out, however, there was another side to the story— one that Satoshi and Yun Zhe wasn't expecting at all. Apparently, Jana's parents were killed by invaders from outer space and driven by her rage, she had chosen the path of revenge. One misunderstanding led to another, and it led her to kill Lucy right in front of Jonathan. Despite her wrong actions, she didn't feel any remorse. In fact, she even believed that Lucy and her entire family deserved to die.
And yes, she killed the entire family of Lucy as well, not to mention that she murdered the entire village, only sparing Jonathan because he was a Disciple just like her. Even during the Official Beast Tournament, Jana still felt like she had done the right thing, and she had planned another genocide right after the Official Beast Tournament.
Somehow, Jonathan knew what was bound to come down, and that's why he stepped in to stop Jana herself. Of course, it was at a cost of killing her. He was well aware that he wouldn't be able to stop Jana by conventional means. That's why he decided to end it once and for all. Had he not done so, Jana would've undergone another killing spree, and another village would've been wiped out from the face of the Earth.
"Wow..." Satoshi trailed off as his gaze slowly redirected to Yun Zhe, who was quietly sitting beside him, chewing on a piece of bread while he twiddled his thumb.
"Don't—" Yun Zhe let out the first word, but Satoshi interrupted him before he could say anything. Of course, Satoshi already knew what he was about to say; that's why he cut him off.
"You really didn't know? I thought you and Jana were close?" Satoshi calmly asked, getting another piece of toast and piling up a number of sunny-side-up eggs and bacon on top of it before shoving it in his mouth. "I mean... you shunned Jonathan from your little group, right?"
"Don't ask me. As far as I know, he killed everyone else. Every Disciple under Bucky Barnes had been murdered by Jonathan... all of them except me and Jana." Yun Zhe let out before heaving a sigh. Satoshi could tell that he was disappointed in himself since he fell for Jana's trickery. "I mean... now that I saw what happened, and there was proof that Jana really did kill every Disciple... then I guess I was in the wrong..."
"Well, you're not entirely in the wrong, Yun Zhe. The reason why I didn't say anything was because... Jonathan did kill a couple of my Disciples as well... granted that they were followers of Jana herself. Man, that was such a shitshow back then. No wonder I was shunned from the circle of Managers. Until now, they still view me as the evilest and cruelest Manager to ever exist, all thanks to my Disciples who just couldn't get along." Bucky Barnes shrugged his shoulders before he heaved a depressed sigh.
"I guess an apology's due. I'll go out and apologize." Yun Zhe said, lightly slapping both his cheeks with his hands before he stood up. He regretted doing that soon after since his hand was oily from the sunny side up and the amount of butter and honey from the pancakes.
"Sure, take your time. Time exists a little differently from this dimension compared to Earth's. An hour here is a minute over there, so... you literally have all the time in the world to talk to Jonathan and patch things up." Bucky Barnes continued. "Hopefully, this is the last time an incident like this happens. I can't deal with another genocide or murder of my Disciple."
With a quick bow, Yun Zhe headed out of the house, leaving Satoshi with Bucky Barnes. Silence immediately filled the atmosphere as the two continued eating. They didn't really have anything to talk about, so they just decided to fill their bellies before Jonathan and Yun Zhe arrived. Particularly, Satoshi made a mental thought that he would finish most of the food before the two of them got back. It would be a fun prank to play since there was nothing else to do.
"So... the World Eater is bound to appear in your dimension in three months, right?" Bucky Barnes brought up out of nowhere, causing Satoshi to stop stuffing himself as he stared at him, his curiosity piqued.
"Yes... or so that's what you said. What exactly is the World Eater? And how do we stop him?" Satoshi asked. So far, Bucky Barnes only briefly explained who the World Eater was— a dimensional phenomenon that travels through the dimensions and swallows it whole. It was a literal destroyer of dimensions, or so that's what Satoshi could gather from what Bucky Barnes had initially told him.
"It is the World Eater... countless worlds have already been destroyed by the World Eater. No one knows where he manifested or which dimension he originally came from. But one thing's for sure... no matter how much you tried to stop him... there's no stopping him." Bucky Barnes said, his face turning into a saddened expression as he gulped down a cup of coffee. "I didn't mean to make you feel dejected or anything like that... it's just that, in all my years of being a Manager... I've only ever seen one dimension who managed to stop the World Eater."
"Only one? Out of how many worlds?"
"Fourteen million, six hundred and five." Bucky Barnes muttered. Even though he spoke of it so casually, Satoshi felt the weight of his words.
"So you're saying that... out of that fourteen million six hundred and five dimensions... only one survived the World Eater's onslaught?" Satoshi almost slammed the table as he exclaimed. "What? How?!"
"Honestly, I don't even know. I don't even know why we still exist as Managers when everything we've done led to the same outcome." Bucky Barnes heaved a sigh.
"But with this... now we know that our dimension still has a chance at winning. Do you happen to know which dimension survived the World Eater? If it's all right, I'll teleport straight through there into one of my dimensional portals and ask them for help." Satoshi asked.
"That's the neat part... the only dimension to survive the World Eater's onslaught is..."
"Is what?" Satoshi's eyes widened, his ears perking up as he intently listened to what Bucky Barnes was about to say next.
"It was your dimension... roughly six thousand years ago." Bucky Barnes continued.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m