Finding The Truth

(A/N: Here we witness the 100 chapter, took a while eh? And no, I'm too lazy to do something special for it. sry abou tha eh?)

"I'm curious, how did you know I was coming?"

Marco looked at him and shrugged, before looking up at the sky. "I just always knew, somehow. That your story wasn't done yet. And that we would see each other again someday. Call it the instinct of an old man, or his stubborness. Doesn't matter, it paid off in the end, no?"

Julian chuckled. Feeling a flurry of emotions inside his chest, but more than anything. He felt at peace, and foolish. How much a few words could mean, it was like a magic of itself. One he should have seeked earlier.

But it didn't matter anymore.

"So it's goodbye, then?" His father said as Julian gazed at his hand who were fading in and out of existence.

"It doesn't have to be, I can come visits sometime in the future."

His father snorted and came to stand before him. "Don't. Don't bother yourself with me. Julian. There's nothing for you anymore here." He put a hand on his shoulder and smiled, his eyes shining with resolve and solemness. "Don't look back anymore, it's only gonna hinder you. Boldly rush ahead or lightly thread forward, I don't care. But don't look back, and keep your head helped high. And most importantly, lives for yourself above all, you deserve it. And who know, bag me a few honorific daughters in law and methophorical grandchildren, or I'll be disappointed." He winked mischeviously.

Julian laughed and put his fading in and out arms around his dad's shoulder in a half hug and smirked. "Why don't you continue your bloodline yourself, old man? Consider it a parting gift." He spread out his wings, momentarily lifting the suppression on his power and use all his magic to shave off 30 to 40 years of old age from his dad body, give or take.

Seeing himself become younger and younger live, Marco was incredulous. "What!? Brat, what did you do? How am I supposed to explain this to the news?"

Julian chuckled as he steppef away and felt himself leaving the world early because of his stunt. "Not my problem, give me a bunch of honorary and metaphorical subblings, will you? Else I'll be disappointed."

"You fucking brat! You're goddamn wrong if you think just because you got some magical bullshit power It'd stop me drom whooping your ass Italian sty-"

The man stopped himself as Julian chuckled, smiled at him and gave him a salute as he faded away one last time, to which he smiled back and reciprocated. The two feeling truly at peace for the longest of time.

"Good luck, son."

~~~~~

Back in the blue room, Julian stood still for a while, a soft smile on his face that quickly wrapped into a happy smile as he wiped his eyes. Immediatly after, he breathed out and straightened his back, his eyes lit with an irridescent spark as the box and chains that had become second nature to him melted away as the words of his father echoed inside his head.

'Don't look back.'

'Live for yourself, you've deserved it.'

'I'm proud of you.'

"You've convinced me, old man. Guess I just needed the right words from the right person. Lame, but a lesson to take to heart going forward." He chuckled as he walked deeper into the tomb, ignoring the mental probbing for the last trial and striding into a final room, even as Echidna tried to get him to explain what the fuck happened.

"You saw my past, guess my present. Maybe I'll tell in the future, but not now." He answered vaguely and searched the room with his sense for anything hidden. Finding a magical formation along one of the wall that could only be activated by an overly complex spell, one he doubted that anyone other but Roswaal could make up on the spot, he weaved it and grabbed the pendant that appeared out of thin air.

He could have asked Echidna for it directly instead, but he couldn't be bothered. He still had a lot on his mind and socializing at all wasn't something he wished to exhaust some of his mental prowess, even as little as such an action needed, over it.

After that, he examined the giant crystal containing the frozen figure of the young pink-haired half-elf who had sacrificed herself to make the sanctuary. And uncemeronialy proceeded to smash it into pieces.

Placing his hand over the girl's head. He noticed that her soul was already long gone, with it fuelling the creation of the barrier all those years ago.

As for her corpse, it seemed nothing was needed to be done from him as shortly after his inspection, it began to flake off into blue particles of mana on its own.

Gazing around the room, it seemed there was nothing for him in this place anymore besides linking the castle of dream and Echidna's soul to the pendant containing the rest of the witches' soul. But that was the Witch of Greed job, not his. And she better not complain if she didn't do it already and he leave without her.

"H-hey, that's no way to treat a maiden, now is it?"

"No, it isn't. But I just can't bring myself to care right now. You could say I'm mentally exhausted from the trial. So stay sharp for me, alright?" He smiled wrily and compromised.

...

"Fine, I'll do as you say."

~~~~~

Julian found himself back in his room, closing his eyes as he closed the door behind him. Finally digesting the trial and his meeting with his previous' life father.

He felt light, like never before. But more importantly, his eyes were opened, truly opened, to a simple fact he had glossed over for nearly all his life. People made mistakes, often even.

If he could forgive someone else for hurting him. Why couldn't he forgive himself too?

There was a declic there, he ironically didn't hold himself to the same standard as other people. Because he was simply not 'other people', he had always been something else. But in the end, that was his mistake. He has no reason to judge himself to such a standard concerning his decisions, especially his decisions. Simply because he lacked experience and was prone to make spur of the moment one.

That was purely logical. It wouldn't prevent him from feeling guilt over them, but the self-loathing was illogical. He had been too harsh on himself. The fault didn't lie solely on his shoulder either.

Yet what could he say? He had never known better, again.

Mikan's words sounded hollow when compared to those of his dad, even if their messages were somewhat similar. While she said that he had to be more selfish in his view, Marco said that he was foolishly wrong in how he perceived himself.

Bad? Good? He was both. But in truth, it didn't matter.

In just the right quantity, chaos was change and progress, order, stability and safety. There was no word to describe having the right quantity of both. Balance wasn't it, it was too rigid, implicating an equal weight to each side to achieve it.

The nuance was prosperity, happiness. How much did you need to shave from one side in each situations to bring the most out of it. But, maybe, maybe there was more to it. Maybe bringing suffering and pain could also work, after all, was punishing the wicked not something neccessary or having some signifiance? Otherwise, why would Kass do it so strongly?

"Urgh." Julian groaned as his head flared in pain, touching his noise his fingers came back with some blood.

"I'm definitely on to something. But I'm going off a tangent." He grinned as he wiped his nose.

Whatever, in any case. Normally, words didn't matter, only deeds did. But in his case, people can only choose to follow his. Else they'd be swept aside by overwhelming power. Like in his first life.

No looking back now.

Beginning, with the kingdom of Lugnica.

From a different timeline.

~~~~~

Julian used Gate Overflow as for the first time in a while, he tried to peer deeper into the streams of time itself. Or at least the one from this world.

Closing his eyes, and using the faint thread of authority connecting him to Subaru and the Witch of Envy. He could somewhat perceive it.

An archaic tree, in a dimension he wasn't sure at all was wholy 3D, far grander than his mind could comprehend. Infinite branches with no beginning and splitting infinitely. Amusingly, the one he was in was obvious to notice, seemingly having a knot at where he would gamble was his 'checkpoint' on the timeline.

Another anomaly was that there was only a single branches splitting from it, a branch with another knot present. It was the one Subaru was on, and contrary to his timeline, his was constantly splitting even after the knot. And those splits, strangely had knots too. Which themselves were prompt to disappear and reappear further along their respective lines.

Needless to say, time when visualised in its entirety was a clusterfuck of possibilities and sheananigans.

However, his solace was that he only had to retrace his timeline and feel for what branches he had been present in to localize which timeline belong to Emilia first of the name, that he had left in the protection of Reinhardt some months ago.

It was possible, wince apparently, his EC had a distinctive presence even as a whole on the matrix of time itself, at least to his perception. So it was relatively easy to retrace that particular timeline since he had died a grand total of 2 times since coming to this world. So that made it only three timeline that had his lingering presence in them.

He had next to no idea how to proceed exactly from there, so as usual, he used instinct.

His wings spread behind him, he frowned in concentration as waves of orange magic irradiated from his body as he began to simply and crudely carve a channel from his actual timeline to the other one.

The room flooded with intense light as he found himself pouring tons of magic into the proccessus, at it turned out switching timeline was not an easy affair.

Slowly but surely, a minuscule path, a thread really in the infinite river of time, expended sideway from road he was on and swam against the current to reach after agonizing minutes another road from the closest 'distance' possible.

Then, with a last burst of magic and his reserve almost being depleted, it connected, and he was gone. Just like that.