Gateway 64

My senses sharpened, and my hand went for my Zanpakuto’s hilt in preparation for the fight to come.

I focused on Luna and apparated to her, leaving the useless people who hadn’t felt anything to gawk in my wake.

The first thing I noticed was that Severus, Luna, and Isane had relocated to a new classroom after I left. The second was that Isane was just as on edge as I was.

“You felt it too?” Isane asked, her eyes moving every each way in wait for a possible foe to appear.

“Yeah,” I nodded, sharing a meaningful gaze with Luna to convey that Fleur was alright before looking back at Isane. “There was divinity in that shockwave. Divinity and something else. I don’t know what it was, but I’m certain I’ve felt it before.”

We stayed that way for a few minutes, ready for an attack.

Only, nothing happened.

"Is this how it happens, then? When you fight Gods?” Isane’s question made me stop scanning the surroundings.

“No,” I shook my head. “From my experience, they’re usually very obvious. That felt more like what I imagine a divine artifact should feel like…”

I held off on hitting myself in the head for my stupidity to instead extend my hand in Severus’ direction.

“Severus, let me see that time-turner,” I ordered.

If I thought Isane and I were on edge, Severus would be considered to be in free fall. He had his back to the wall, wand so firmly in hand I didn’t know how it hadn’t snapped yet. His posture was as rigid as a statue, with only a mechanical turn of the head towards me after I said his name to indicate he heard me.

“The… time-turner?” He said slowly, the alertness melting off his face to be replaced by supreme annoyance. “Here!” He said, and in one movement, he yanked the necklace out of his neck and threw it at me.

I had barely caught the time-turner when Severus exclaimed: “Fuck! I forgot about Crouch!” And took off running out of the classroom.

All three of us stared at his retreating form in varying levels of surprise.

“Should we…?” Isane said, pointing in Severus' direction.

“I… don’t think so?” I said, just as puzzled by his reaction.

I had never seen Severus be anything other than composed. Even when he was angry or annoyed, he was always in control. And sure, from Luna’s stories and her bout of roleplay when she was teaching me potions, he could be a malicious jerk when he wanted to, but never in a way that’d show weakness like this.

“Alex,” Luna said, grabbing my attention. “You came in acting as if a God could be bearing down on us at any second, and then we spent minutes waiting for an attack.”

“Fuck,” I said, noticing how Luna was holding her wand just as firmly as Severus, but instead of his statue-like rigidity, her hands were shaking. I pulled her into my arms, hugging her tightly as I felt her stress bleed out of her.

With all of the rushing of the last few hours, I was still acting as if I were in the Seireitei, where everyone was a warrior ready to fight to the death one moment and calmly sit down to have a tea the next. One look at Isane showed how she had gone from being prepared to fight to being mildly uncomfortable at me and Luna having a moment.

Once I felt that Luna had calmed down, I guided her to the professor’s chair so she could sit while I put the time-turner on the table.

As if it were a signal, both Isane and Luna leaned forward to take a better look at it. The gold timepiece gleamed in the torchlight as if begging to be used.

“To think time travel existed…” Isane muttered as I started searching for any traces of divinity on the time-turner.

“Daddy said that it’s very rare and regulated,” Luna muttered back with a nod.

“It’s also limited,” I said, diving deeper into my senses after not finding anything. “You can only go back a few hours, you can’t use it to change the past, and you definitely shouldn’t meet your past self when using it.”

“But you did!” Isane exclaimed in worry. “Does that mean there’ll be consequences?”

“Did I really?” I smirked. “Severus and Luna changed their memories before going back, didn’t they? Who’s to say it didn’t always happen this way?” I doubted that was the answer; there was no way for such an object to affect another universe entirely. It was much more likely that, as a Campione, my ability to break fate simply allowed me to change things with impunity. “By the way, how are you feeling?” I asked Luna.

“I’m fine,” she sighed. “Fleur’s d-death and the new memories were tough to deal with. And the scare you gave me didn’t help,” she mock-glared at me. “But you’re here, and you fixed everything, so I couldn’t ask for a better outcome.”

I leaned in and kissed her forehead. She wasn’t fine, not yet anyway. But she would be, I just had to give her time.

“What were you doing, anyway?” Isane asked. “We were too busy running around and then staying in tense silence while we waited for you.”

“I also want to know,” Luna nodded. “Professor Snape was very tight-lipped about your role in his plan.”

Giving up on finding any amount of divinity on the time-turner, I summoned a chair and sat down with a groan.

“There’s nothing here. Not even an echo of an echo,” I said. “So my best guess is that the wave of divinity was from the timeline being changed. I’ll have to do some experiments later, probably steal another one of these while I’m at it.”

“But you said it had always happened the way it did!” Isane complained.

“No, I said, ‘Who’s to say it didn’t?’, now we have proof,” I replied. But Isane still seemed confused. “How much did Captain Unohana tell you about me?”

“Only that you’re a Godslayer and that you’re from a different world,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Ok, so, Campione, that’s what we Glodslayers are called, are natural fate breakers. Our entire existence is based on the fact that we break fate so hard that even gods can’t help but die when facing us.” I explained.

“So Potions Master Snape used the time-turner to go back in time to call you back here so you could save the girl and prevent the evil wizard from returning,” Isane nodded in understanding.

“Right on the first, wrong on the second,” I corrected her. “Severus’ plan was for me to save Fleur and then let Voldemort come back to life so I could make a statement to his followers and the Wizarding World at large.” Isane still seemed a little bit confused, but I could explain the details to her later. “Which I didn’t manage to do properly because something distracted me when I got to the cemetery: Voldemort’s soul.”

Now it was Luna’s turn to be confused while Isane looked curiously at me.

“His soul was, lesser, than what a normal human soul should be,” I leaned back, looking at the ceiling to gather my thoughts. “I needed to see it, and it was much worse than that. His soul was mutilated, one piece on Harry, the other floating around trying to recover its strength.” I shook off the grotesque image from my mind. “Although that doesn’t explain how both halves were so much smaller than what they should be.”

“Maybe what caused the split destroyed the majority of his soul, and the pieces you found were the only ones that managed to survive,” Isane said, tapping a finger on her chin in contemplation. “Or maybe the pieces degraded with time,” she shrugged.

“Eh, it doesn’t matter now. I cut him down with my Zanpakuto, so his soul should be purified.” I clapped my hands and stood up. “We have more pressing issues anyway,” I said, looking at Luna. “The last few hours…”

She nodded in understanding. I had explained to her at length how dangerous our connection was and how the best stopgap from something bad happening was emotional regulation. Something that went out of the window when Fleur died. The darkness in my inner world was proof enough of that; it was only Stargazer’s efforts that kept things going as long as they did, but even that had its limits.

“Come on,” I said, extending my hand to help her stand up. “Let’s do this at your house. I’m sure your dad would like to be present.”

She took my hand with a smile, and after making sure we weren’t leaving anything behind, I opened us a door to The Rook.

As the girls stepped through, I looked back on the classroom, feeling like I was missing something. But when I couldn’t think of anything, I followed after them.

___

After a round of pleasantries (and a very tight hug from Xeno), we moved on to a clearing in the garden.

Even while animatedly talking with Isane, Xeno stayed close to Luna. He knew that what was about to happen had risks, and he made sure to show her his love the entire way. As for Luna, she pretended to be put off by it, but it was clear she loved every second of it, and I loved that for her.

When we arrived at the clearing, I conjured a table and put a long, intricately carved wooden box out of my pocket on top of it.

One of the things that worried me about keeping Urahara’s modified Asauchi in my pocket was the risk of my spiritual pressure affecting it more than the power I had already infused into it. So Ukitake had given me a solution: a box that would spiritually isolate the Asauchi. It’d take active tampering from a Captain-level Shinigami to break through its protections, something that I didn’t have to worry about.

Luna and Xeno looked curiously as I opened the box.

“This,” I said, taking the standard-looking Asauchi out of the box. “Is the tool I’ll use to change you,” I said, looking at Luna. “It has the spiritual power of 7 Captain-level Shinigami, 3 Lieutenants, and me. It was made by one of the greatest minds ever produced by the Soul Society specifically to remove any chances of anything going wrong, and it has a chance of being permanent.”

“But there are still risks,” Xeno said quietly, his hand on Luna’s shoulder pulling her closer.

“There are,” I nodded. “The worst-case scenarios were all dealt with already, but the difference in how souls work between the two worlds may cause complications. The main one being that souls here are made of ectoplasm instead of spiritual particles, so dissonance may occur if the change gives Luna a second spiritual body.”

“How bad is it?” Xeno asked.

“Not very,” I smiled. “Part of the change is to help Luna skip most of the formation process so she starts with an already formed inner world. That way, any dissonance can be dealt with by her Zanpakuto spirit.” Xeno still looked worried, but he had relaxed a little. “Plus, I checked and rechecked everything a few times with the help of a friend, and everything checks out even for this world. The Arithmancy was insane enough I might even write a book on it.”

After hearing that, Xeno relaxed further, and with great reluctance, he gave Luna a final hug before letting her come to me.

I just pulled her closer and kissed her. Not a fiery and passionate kiss, but a tender one, where I poured every single speck of love and affection I had to spare into it. And I felt the same feelings being returned by her. Her hands tenderly holding my face as she did her level best to show me just how much she loved me.

“Alex!” Stargazer exclaimed, and I understood what was happening. The more we tried to emotionally give our love to each other, the more the line between our souls blurred. Stargazer could hold off on my side, at least for a time, but without a similar force on her side, Luna’s soul would end up invading mine, and the second our souls touched, it’d be over for her.

Pulling back from our kiss, I looked at Luna seriously.

“It’s time,” I said, and with a nod, she moved a few feet away.

“Will it hurt?” Luna asked, a hint of apprehension in her tone.

“Yes,” I said, putting both of my hands on the Asauchi’s hilt and pointing it at her heart. “Do you trust me? With your soul?”

“Is there a difference between mine and yours, at this point?” She replied.

“I love you,” I said, activating the Asauchi and lunging forward.

“I love you too,” she said with a smile as the sword plunged into her heart.

___

A/N: And that’s that.

What could Alex be missing? I wonder…

As always, thank you all for your support! See you again next week.