Dimension 00

-6- [Timeline Divergence]

Walking down the busy sidewalk was Miké. It was a late morning, nearing the afternoon, and the sidewalks were filled with people. A common everyday sight.

For Miké, in one hand were bags from a few stores and her purse. In her other hand was her phone. Occasionally, she'd look up from her phone to see where she was, using her peripheral vision, Miké was able to move easily between the people in front of her.

After a bit more walking, she eventually came to a stop at the train station. Looking back at her phone, Miké started to scroll through her contacts until stopping at Akira's contact information.

"Haven't spoken to him in a few days, I wonder what he and the others are up to right now."

"Well whatever, maybe I'll stop by and check on them myself."

Meanwhile, Akira met with Saki at a small café near the apartment. Taking a seat at the furthest end they could, with Akira facing the exit, he decided to explain as much as he could to Saki. As he explained, Saki just stared at him silently. Even when eating or drinking, she never once took her eyes off him.

Only when Akira finished talking, Saki finally spoke up.

"So... this whole time you've been talking to a man named Chris Decker... and he's hiding in Russia but is also from the year 2023."

"No, he is in the year 2023. His timeline and ours have crossed paths which is why I've been able to make contact with him."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound right to me."

"Wait, you believe in parallel worlds and my phone being able to use time travel, but you stop at the part where I'm talking to someone that's in the future?"

"I wouldn't say I don't believe you... more like..." Saki's voice became smaller and smaller until she stopped talking completely, then turned her head away to avoid eye contact with Akira. Akira scoffed at Saki as he got up from the table, setting down enough money to pay for what they ate and drank.

"Whatever, let's just get back to my place. Hopefully Shay and Mami are there now."

Leaving the café, Saki followed close behind Akira who took out his phone, looking over the app again, "It's been a few days since the app last updated. It hasn't requested another one, is it done with all updates? More importantly, what can it do now?"

"Can we really say it'll do something different? You've only used it twice, right?" Saki asked, "The first was an accident, and the second time it failed to finish because I touched it, right? As a result, I've kept my memories too."

As they came to the apartment building, Akira allowed Saki to go up first. Just as he followed her, taking his first step, he came to an abrupt stop.

"Something wrong, Akira?"

Akira said nothing, looking at his phone in disbelief, "The messages... they're gone..."

"Gone? What do you mean gone?"

Coming back down, Saki took the phone from Akira. He gave no reaction to this, likely still in both shock and confusion at it. Looking over the Labrys, Saki took in a sharp breath. The phone only gave a message, stating the messages couldn't be received. Saki took out her own phone, seeing she still kept the same corrupted messages, "How... did you maybe delete them?"

"No... that isn't an option for anything on Labrys."

"So... so where did they go?"

<> <> <> <> <>

Despite the rather odd event of suffering lost messages, Akira moved on. Choosing not to worry about something like that. Instead, he and Saki resumed their initial mission, gathering Shay and Mami and explaining as best they could about what they now knew. This also meant talking about the stranger things, time travel, parallel worlds, that sort of thing.