The blistering light of the machine, scattered across his eyes. Tubes connected into one another, containing dozens if not thousands of wires, spanning over the entire building.

  Walking over to the machine, the age old dust flew as he softly pressed against the surface.

  His mind was thrilled at the multiple contraptions, filling his sensory senses by the second. Spreading all across his body, his hold of the hand slipped briefly as he immediately rebalanced himself.

  Realizing what had happened, his lips spread. He didn't expect himself to lose himself, admiring it.

  'Quite the machine.' Wanting to explore it even more, his hand extended to the nearest metal before liquefying it as he carefully shaped it into a screwdriver.

  'Eh' Unfortunately, it didn't turn out as expected. The tip was too big to fit any of the screws.

  'Geez.' Annoyed, he smashed the driver into the screw as the tip lost its solid state before diving into the screw.

  With the screwdriver being the perfect size, his hand twisted. The gathered dust reflected the lights, if an uninformed individual saw this, they would immediately assume it was a bio hazard.

  And it was quite close to being it.

  '?!'

  With the cover opened, the swift movement of gears instantly flooded his ears.

  His mind rushed at the sight of mechanical wheels, rapidly affecting each other, generating electricity, unlike anything he had seen before.

  However, that alone couldn't stun him.

  It wasn't his first time seeing a mechanical machine, in fact, he had seen multiple marvelous machines that were on pair with digital ones. Nevertheless, this one was the most complex one he had seen yet.

  The others were ineffective, and too big for commercial uses. After all, why would one use a 10 cm voice recorder when you have one tenth of its size with 200x effectiveness.

  Yet, this machine was mostly mechanical and the size of half his height and despite the simple design, the method in which they were all set up was incredibly ingenious.

  One turn would power his house for an hour, and its revolutions per minute was clearly enough to last him a decade.

  'This much energy.'

  One question entered his mind, looking at this machine. Why would anyone need this much power?

  Mesmerized by it, his eyes turned slightly to the digital part of the machine. Digital machines were the norm of this era, it would be weird to not have any parts of it even in a mechanical machine.

  His eyes shot open, the sensation that used to help him, led him into mental anguish.

  Knowledge that the human mind wasn't supposed to know in a few seconds was slowly forcing itself into him.

  'Ughhhhh.'

  The legs that held his weight spasmed, Julo's entire body struggled to keep control.

  Overloading his brain, he painfully processed the signals from the sensory. Even if he didn't have a choice.

  From every signal, every circuit, every switch. The sensory picked up all of these as it carved itself into his memories.

  'Ghh.'

  Eyes shaking, blood gushing out from his nose as he pushed the ground. Despite his legs still shaking, the machine acted as a perfect object to hold onto.

  'I see.' Rubbing his temples, he dared to look in the same direction yet again. This time, no effects were present in his body.

  The object was revealed to be an insanely small chip, the size of his finger nails. Though the size was completely ridiculous, its usage overshadowed it.

  50 petabytes contained in such a space, overwhelmed his mind by making him comprehend the impossible. The methods were now permanent in his memories.

  Julo, quite excited about this newfound knowledge, couldn't wait to get back home and test it out himself. And the best part? He didn't need such materials for it.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Of course, it was recommended for the material to be suited for memory storage but still it was just recommended.

  Despite being excited, he still wouldn't want to feel the anguish again.

  Staring at the gears for the last time, Julo realized something he had subconsciously ignored, he could sense the gears. Not in a way of seeing but it was the same way of feeling technology.

  'That's weird.' Julo thought with curious intent.

  'I'll figure it out at home.' Despite being eager to study it, a mission was still present for him to do, that was the main reason he was here in the first place.

  Leaving the machine, he darted through the room, searching for the notebook. He wasn't sure if it was in here but with his intuition telling otherwise, he kept on searching.

  He opened one of the drawers in the wall, revealing multiple quality papers with the noise of sheets cutting against each other.

  Even more curious, his finger nudged at one of the papers with ease.

  The paper contents didn't have a red circle on it saying “classified”, and despite that he could still tell he wasn't supposed to read this.

  Of course, that wasn't going to stop him from trying.

  ‘The state of Versile after death.’

  Not quite as interesting as the machine, he skimmed through the papers, fully knowing that he could make some profits.

  ‘...The Versile was still present even after death, only when a second had passed that it was dragged to an unknown place. Multiple attempts were done to keep the Versile from getting dragged but the force behind the drag was beyond what I could imagine. The highest amount of time it was kept was three seconds and that took months of research to do. However, in my research, one of my colleagues gave me the idea to replicate the Versile pathways that were inside the human body. It initially sounded ridiculous, the pathway’s complexity was definitely beyond what this century would do and yet the idea stuck with me. I attempted it, and it worked like a charm. Despite the duration being only a few minutes long, we managed to study the Versile from the subject. What we didn't expect was the machine gaining sentience with all of the personality of the dead person. Maybe, just maybe we might be able to put Versile into another human body and gain eternal life…’

  “What?” This amount of ridiculousness seems to make sense. The other papers were all junk that he didn't understand, and yet he didn't doubt for a second.

  The previous creature on the machine looked like it was from this research. Merging multiple Versile, creating multiple personalities with fresh squeezing into each other.

  He shook his head, regaining focus on searching the notebook.

  ‘Found it.’ Putting it into his pocket, he stood up before going to the machine as he carefully inserted his hands, reaching to the digital chip before taking it.

  The gears briefly froze before turning with more power.

  ‘Still working.’ Staring at the gears for the last time again, he sighed in disappointment as he faced the door direction.

  Noticing a bracelet, he didn't hesitated to grab it. Every part of it felt familiar and with his danger sense not telling him anything, he decided to take it home.

  As his feet pressed lightly against the floor, creaking it, at the corner of his eyes, a purple book made certain of its presence.

  His head turned to the book, eyes fixated on it, Julo’s mind felt like he was still in his childhood looking at the symbol.

  Distorted brain, hardly able to make it out with plain eyes, resembling the sundial symbol from before.

  However this time, the color seems more terrifying.

  His mind darted to the moment of the past as he immediately rushed out of the room, not taking any chances within its presence.

  ***

  {Who said it was yours to decide.}

  ***

  The soft and warm texture of the book rubbed against his skin, pressing it was a guaranteed chance of destroying it.

  Its last page greeted his gaze.

  A thud accompanied by the wall supporting Julo’s immediate fall, his spine froze as chills pierced through his bones.

  ***

  One, two and zero, good, bad and neutral, Everything and nothing.

  Zero existed, then one and two came. Neutral came, good and bad appeared.

  Nothing existed, and everything placed its seed.

  Everything and nothing is balanced, everything is a state of all, nothing is a state of fog, everything persisted while nothing erased. Condensed everything is an infinite dense liquid and condensed nothing is dense fog.

  Everything is balanced, nothing is balanced. Every being is nothing and everything. Yet if one is unbalanced then one doesn't exist. If one didn't exist then does balance exist? If one is only one then balance doesn't exist. And thus unbalanced shall not exist.

  ***

  “Let's go.” The odachi froze under temperature as the man ordered them to follow.

  “What does this have to do with us?” Smokes raised from his hand as the cigarette was lifted.

  “Ema, you're a detective.” He replied without a pause.

  “I'm a detective, not a miracle invoker. Look at this thing, its rusty as fuck and it looks like it would collapse at the slightest movement.” His fingers stared at the building.

  “Hm?” The man with the Odachi looked at the building's entrance, a shadow slowly stepped into the sun’s shade as footsteps echoed into their ears.

  His eyes widened, realizing who this person was. Purple hair with red irises was an appearance that no one here beside Ema and Remi could forget. Even more so was the ruined clothing on his arm, and the slow walking as if in pain.

  “We have a bounty on her, no?” One of the people he had brought with him immediately underestimated her, clearly trying to get a quick buck.

  Even so, he didn't bother warning him. After all, this could be the perfect moment to guess her Versile ability.

  As the man rushed, her head snapped like a snake before squeezing the extended arm.

  BOOM

  The clearest bone snap rang out.

  His bones, disfigured in places where it shouldn't be with her leg threatening to permanently disable the arm.

  ‘Great speed.’ Seeing her leg, immediately snap to the arm in an instant was enough for him to know she was a dangerous match.

  But just because it’s dangerous doesn't mean he couldn't take her down.

  Exchanging gazes with her, she reached into her pocket as a purple book reflected into their eyes.

  The book flew out of her grace, landing straight on his hand, catching it.

  He checked for any symbols before putting it in a secure bag.

  “Hey! Can I hire you?!” Ema shouted at the top of his lungs, squeezing the little cold air he had.

  With no response, he eventually quieted down, turning to Remi before asking.

  “She seems familiar.”

  She paused before replying.

  “On the ship, we've seen her.”

  ***

  The storming light of the ocean shined through the window, revealing three people, sitting with an awful silence.

  “Julo, hang in there ok? We’re coming to get you.’