The rooftop felt empty.
Too empty.
I stood there, staring at the space where they had been only moments ago, my fingers tightening around the unfamiliar weight in my hand.
The weapon hummed softly.
I hated that sound.
“They’re gone…” I whispered.
The words tasted wrong as they left my mouth.
A sharp ache formed in my chest — sudden and tight — the kind that comes when something precious is taken without warning.
My hands trembled as I lowered the weapon, my vision blurring.
Then—
A thought brushed against my mind.
Not my own.
Mizuki…
I froze.
My breath caught painfully in my throat.
Another voice followed — familiar, steady, afraid.
We’re here.
My heart slammed hard against my ribs.
“…You can hear me?” I whispered.
Yes, one of them answered.
We’re… inside.
I looked down at the weapon again, my grip loosening as understanding rushed in all at once.
They weren’t erased.
They were contained.
Converted into something else.
A cost — but not a loss.
Heat burned behind my eyes as guilt washed over me.
“I thought…” My voice cracked.
“I thought you were gone.
That this power took you as payment.”
The weapon pulsed faintly, warm now — no longer cold.
We’re still us, another voice said gently.
We’re just… closer.
I closed my eyes.
Focused.
Not on the weapon.
On them.
On the feeling of their presence — their fear, their warmth, the weight of shared memories pressing softly against my thoughts.
“Come back,” I whispered.
“Please.”
The hum deepened.
Light flared briefly—
And then vanished.
The weight in my hand disappeared as if it had never existed.
In its place—
Two familiar shapes stumbled forward.
“Mizuki—!”
I didn’t hesitate.
I stepped into them, wrapping my arms around both at once, holding them as tightly as I could without hurting them.
They clung back immediately, fingers gripping my clothes, breaths uneven.
For a long moment, none of us spoke.
I buried my face between their shoulders, my voice trembling.
“For a second,” I said quietly, “I thought I lost you.
That using this power meant giving you up.”
Their arms tightened around me.
We’re still here, one of them murmured.
And we’re not going anywhere, the other added.
I held them longer than necessary.
Because now I understood something clearly.
This power doesn’t just test strength.
It tests what you’re willing to lose.
And standing there on the rooftop, holding both of them again, I made myself a silent promise—
No matter what this ability demanded next…
I wouldn’t let it take them.
Not again.
I pulled back just enough to look at them.
“If you were inside that weapon,” I asked quietly, “did you understand it?”
They exchanged a glance.
Not confused.
Not frightened.
Thinking.
Clone-1 spoke first.
“Inside, it didn’t feel like being trapped.”
Clone-2 nodded.
“It felt like being aware.”
“Of what?” I asked.
They looked at each other again — the same way I did when trying to explain something I only half-understood.
“Time,” Clone-1 said.
“And space,” Clone-2 added.
Not dramatic.
Just factual.
“When we were inside,” Clone-1 continued, “we could feel things stretching.
Folding.
Connecting.”
Clone-2 frowned slightly.
“Not moving forward or backward.
More like… overlapping.”
Something inside me stirred faintly, responding to their words.
“So the gun…” I said slowly.
“It’s not just a weapon.”
“No,” Clone-1 replied.
“It’s a tool.”
“A node,” Clone-2 corrected.
“Something that touches time and space at the same point.”
They both looked at me now.
“We don’t know everything it can do,” Clone-1 admitted.
“But we know this,” Clone-2 said quietly.
“It doesn’t destroy,” they said together.
“It repositions.”
The wind swept across the rooftop, colder than before.
I looked down at my empty hand — where the weapon had been — and finally understood why it had never felt heavy.
It wasn’t made to fire.
It was made to interfere.
“With moments,” I whispered.
“With outcomes,” Clone-1 replied.
“With fate,” Clone-2 finished.
Silence settled between us — not fear, not panic.
Understanding.
If this power was tied to time and space…
Then stopping what happened that night wouldn’t require strength.
It would require precision.
And standing there with both of them beside me, I realized something important:
I wasn’t meant to face this alone.
This power was designed for three minds thinking as one.
They were quiet for a moment.
Then Clone-1 spoke, her voice careful.
“We didn’t use the full level of power.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“When we were inside,” she said slowly, “we could feel the weapon.
Not just what it did — but what it could do.”
Clone-2 nodded.
“There was more.
Much more.”
They exchanged that same shared look.
“The power flowing through it right now,” Clone-1 continued, “isn’t enough to activate everything.”
“It’s like running a system on minimum input,” Clone-2 added.
“It responds, but only partially.”
A chill settled in my chest.
“So what we used…” I said quietly, “…wasn’t the full function.”
“No,” Clone-1 said.
“Only one feature.”
“Maybe two,” Clone-2 corrected.
“At most.”
The wind brushed past us again.
Inside my mind, something shifted.
“So the gun isn’t weak,” I said.
“It’s restrained,” Clone-1 replied.
“By you,” Clone-2 added gently.
That hit harder than I expected.
“You’re the limiter,” Clone-1 continued.
“Your state.
Your resolve.
Your cost.”
I finally understood.
This power wasn’t locked because it couldn’t be used.
It was locked because using it fully would demand something more.
Something I wasn’t ready to give.
Yet.
I lifted my gaze to meet theirs.
“Then we learn,” I said.
“Carefully.”
They both nodded.
Because whatever this weapon truly was…
We had only scratched the surface.
And somewhere beyond that surface waited a choice that would not be reversible.
“What else did you sense?” I asked.
Clone-1 hesitated.
“Functions tied deeper into time.
Not just repositioning.”
“And space,” Clone-2 added.
“Layers of it.
Distances that aren’t measured in meters.”
I clenched my hands.
The gun hummed again — low and steady.
Inside my mind, their voices surfaced, calmer now.
More certain.
You can try one more feature, one of them said.
The energy you gathered is enough, the other added.
I tightened my grip.
“What do I do?” I asked.
Hold it firmly, they replied.
Both hands.
I did.
The surface of the weapon warmed beneath my palms, faint patterns along its body pulsing slowly — like a system waiting for input.
Don’t aim, they continued.
Don’t fire.
I swallowed.
Just think, one of them said gently.
About where you want to be.
My breath slowed.
My room.
The bed.
The quiet.
The place where we had held each other and tried to feel safe.
I focused on it — not as an image, but as a location.
A fixed point in space, as real as the rooftop beneath my feet.
The gun responded instantly.
The hum deepened.
The air around me compressed — not painfully, not violently — like the world drawing a careful breath.
Then—
The rooftop vanished.
There was no movement.
No falling.
No sense of distance at all.
One moment I stood beneath the open sky—
And the next—
I was on my bed.
The mattress dipped beneath my weight as I stumbled forward, catching myself with one hand.
The familiar scent of the room surrounded me, warm and unmistakably real.
The gun vanished from my hands.
Silence rushed in.
I stood there, heart pounding, staring at the walls — the desk, the chair, the window — everything exactly where it should be.
“…It worked,” I whispered.
Yes, they replied softly, their voices echoing faintly in my thoughts.
Space responded.
I sank onto the bed slowly, pressing my palms into the fabric, grounding myself in its warmth.
We hadn’t broken reality.
We had stepped through it.
And now I knew something else for certain:
This wasn’t a weapon meant to fight.
It was a tool meant to go where fate said we couldn’t.
Thank you for reading Beyond Space and Time – I Was Not Allowed to End.
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