The future, which had always been a terrifying, oppressive unknown for Arthur despite his supposed “Talent,” now felt even more vast, more unpredictable, but also, strangely, more laden with a desperate, shared, and almost defiant agency. They were no longer just characters in a half-remembered story he carried within him like a curse. They were survivors, together, facing a monstrous, common enemy, armed now with not just their varied Talents and their hard-won courage, but with the most bizarre, the most unbelievable, the most world-shattering truth imaginable. Where they went from here, what they chose to do with this impossible knowledge, was now, truly, terrifyingly, and perhaps even liberatingly, up to them.
Arthur watched their faces in the flickering firelight – Nana’s stunned but newly resolute expression, Kyouya’s thoughtful and analytical gaze, Michiru’s wide, tear-filled but courageous eyes, Jin’s unreadable, almost unnervingly placid mask. He had laid bare his most fundamental, most unbelievable secret. He felt strangely scoured, almost hollowed out, yet also, paradoxically, lighter. He had done his part; the truth, however insane, was out.
He cleared his throat, the small sound loud in the sudden, contemplative silence of the cave. He thought of the sheer, unadulterated madness of it all – an accounts clerk from Crawley, of all places, now a fugitive in a hostile Japan of the future, allied with a group of super-powered teenagers, about to propose a strategy based on a half-remembered comic book. It wasn’t exactly a Tuesday morning budget meeting back in his old office, nor was it akin to mulling over the day’s dreary news with a pint down the local pub on a damp May evening, anywhere remotely familiar on the south coast of England, or indeed, anywhere else in the sane, predictable world he’d once known. This was something else entirely.
“Right then,” Arthur said, his voice still a little shaky but gaining a new firmness. He looked around at each of them in turn. “Before we… before we decide what actions to take next, how we move forward from this… this rather unique position…” He managed a small, wry, almost pained smile. “I do have one idea. Something that might… just might… give us an edge, or at least a direction.”
He paused, letting that sink in, then met their gazes squarely. “But before I even attempt to explain that, I imagine you all must have… well, rather a lot of questions for me, given what I’ve just told you.” He spread his hands in a gesture of openness, of surrender to their scrutiny. “So. Are there any questions?”
The fire crackled, spitting a shower of sparks into the charged air. The roar of the waterfall outside seemed to recede, leaving a ringing silence in the cave, a silence pregnant with a thousand unasked, unbelievable queries. Their new, uncertain, and utterly bizarre fight had just truly begun.
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