Chapter Text
“Ugh… my head…” Amelia’s voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. She tried to open her eyes, but there was no light—only endless darkness. The blackness felt so thick and close that she couldn’t even tell if her eyes were open.
Her head throbbed, sharp and relentless, as if needles were stabbing from the inside. She winced and took a shaky breath, but the pain stayed. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was stumbling through a cave, taking a wrong turn, and almost falling into a chasm.
She had reached for her golden pocket watch, her one reliable tool. With a flick, she could turn back time, retrace her steps, and fix her mistakes. That was always her plan. But this time, instead of rewinding and waking up at the cave’s entrance, her body went limp, her vision faded to black, and she lost consciousness.
And now, this.
She tensed and tried to lift her hand to her aching temples, but stopped. Her wrists wouldn’t move. Something heavy pulled at her arms—they were bound. Chains. Cold metal held her to the ground. She blinked into the darkness, searching for anything to focus on, but found nothing. All she could feel was the hard surface beneath her, digging into her skin. Maybe it was concrete. She couldn’t be sure.
Her breath caught. “Where… where am I…” Her voice was shaky and cracked in the emptiness. No one answered.
Time stopped making sense as she sat in the silence. She didn’t know how long she’d been out—minutes or hours. Her body felt heavy and slow, as if sleep still weighed her down. Each heartbeat sent pain through her head, making it hard to think. But slowly, painfully, her senses started to return.
That was when she realized something was truly wrong.
The silence felt wrong. It wasn’t like the quiet of a cave or the calm of a forest at night. It was heavier, as if the air swallowed every sound. Even her breathing echoed strangely. Each breath rattled in her chest and bounced back to her ears, as if the walls made it louder, but at the same time, the sound was muffled, like it was under a blanket. It was disorienting and unnatural.
She shivered. The air was damp and cold, sticking to her skin. But it wasn’t just the chill that made her uneasy. Something else was here, something she couldn’t name. It was in the air and the silence, making her instincts scream that something was wrong.
Her heart beat faster. Wherever she was, it wasn’t where she belonged. Deep down, Amelia knew things were only going to get worse from here.
Amelia Watson was one of the best detectives in the world, and she knew it. Her confidence came from years of chasing leads others missed and finding patterns in chaos. She had seen crime scenes so disturbing they haunted others for years, solved puzzles so complex that only a few could unravel them, and even went beyond the limits of time. With her golden watch, she had witnessed horrors that twisted reality and wonders that made no sense. She believed she was ready for anything.
But she was about to find out she was wrong.
The air in front of her split open with a low, guttural hum. No warning, no sign. One moment, there was only the suffocating dark, and the next, a rift had torn itself into existence—a portal.
It wasn’t just big; it was colossal, making her feel small in comparison as it towered above her. She had to tilt her head back to try to see the top, but it was too high. The portal was pure white and so bright it hurt to look at, standing out sharply against the darkness around her.
Amelia frowned. In stories, portals usually glowed blue or swirled with wild energy, like in games or old novels she’d read. But this was different. Here, all the color was gone. There was only white and black, nothing else.
The hum grew louder. The darkness around her shook. Then a voice broke the silence.
“Tch. Finally, the human who can control time has been caught.”
Amelia’s blood ran cold.
Figures started to appear from the blinding light. At first, they looked like shadows against the white, their shapes hard to make out. There were five of them. Their tall, human-like silhouettes stretched across the ground. The portal’s light made their movements look strange and unnatural. Amelia’s throat tightened. “W–Who are you, people? Where am I?” The words tumbled out in a rush, the first that her lips could form. Her voice cracked with an edge she hated—fear.
Amelia never admitted to being afraid. She was proud of her calm, always facing danger with a steady look. But this time was different. She couldn’t hide her fear. It tightened around her chest and made it hard to breathe.
The five figures moved closer, their footsteps in perfect sync. As they approached, the light faded enough for her to see them more clearly.
Amelia’s breath caught. Her eyes went wide, and before she could stop herself, she let out a sharp gasp that echoed in the darkness.
“I am Ouro Kronii, the Warden of Time and leader of The Council.”
Amelia had heard of them before. Not from her own experiences, but from stories whispered across timelines, fragments of rumors passed between different versions of herself in other universes. She hadn’t always believed those stories. As a detective, she knew better than to trust hearsay without proof, but she never ignored them completely. When you spend enough time bending the rules of time, you realize that even the wildest tales often hold a bit of truth.
They were simply called The Council. Five beings, said to be godlike, each represented a basic part of existence. The myths claimed they weren’t creators, but guardians—living symbols of ideas the ancient gods made when they shaped the universe. At least, that’s what the stories said.
Like the four mythical beings on Earth that Amelia called friends, the Council was often seen as just a story—a children’s tale to help people understand ideas too big for the human mind. Space, time, nature, civilization, and chaos were too vast to imagine as people, too abstract to ever meet in person. At least, that’s what she used to think.
But now, with her wrists chained to cold concrete, Amelia looked up and saw all five of them standing in front of her.
Her chest tightened. There was no doubt who they were. She studied each of them, trying to recall what she had heard in the stories.
Tsukumo Sana stood at the front, the Speaker of Space and the Cosmic Universe. Stories called her infinite, a presence that struggled to fit into any physical form without changing reality itself. Amelia sensed that right away. Even when Sana looked human, something about her seemed strange, as if her outline flickered against emptiness and her presence could not be contained. Staring at her too long made Amelia feel as if galaxies were spinning just behind Sana’s eyes.
Next to her was Ceres Fauna, the Keeper of Nature and Mother Earth. While Sana felt endless, Fauna’s presence was steady and gentle. The air around her seemed softer, carrying the scent of grass after rain, fresh soil, and blooming flowers. Still, beneath her calmness was a warning: nature could be harsh, able to cover cities in vines and turn civilizations to dust if ignored.
Then there was Ouro Kronii, the Warden and Overseer of Time. Amelia felt a knot in her stomach when she saw her. Of everyone on the Council, Kronii’s power was closest to Amelia’s own. Amelia could bend and use time for her investigations, but Kronii was time itself. That difference was frightening. Kronii’s gaze felt heavy, as if every second pressed down on Amelia at once. Amelia had always thought she was clever for mastering her watch, but next to Kronii, she felt like a child playing with a toy.
Next came Hakos Baelz, the embodiment of chaos. She was disorder and unpredictability, all hidden in a form that seemed harmless at first. But the longer Amelia looked, the more impossible it was to figure Baelz out. She seemed to flicker, as if the universe itself couldn’t settle on her shape. Amelia almost heard a laugh that hadn’t happened yet, a sound that made her skin crawl for reasons she couldn’t explain.
Finally, just behind the others, stood Nanashi Mumei, the Guardian of Civilization and the embodiment of humanity’s shared memory. She didn’t seem as overwhelming as the rest at first. Her presence didn’t reach across galaxies or fill the air with nature’s force. Instead, she was quiet, with a subtle feeling that unsettled Amelia. Civilization was fragile, built from memories and every act of creation and destruction people had ever done. Mumei carried all of that inside her.
Amelia swallowed hard.
If the stories were true, Mumei stood for every person who had ever lived, every invention, every culture, and every act of war or peace. She was humanity, gathered into one being.
Amelia’s mind started racing, breaking down the situation as she always did. Five beings, each with incredible power. Shackles on her wrists. A void that made even her breath feel distant. Still, logic led her to one hope: if things went wrong and talks failed, maybe, just maybe, Mumei could be reasoned with. If Mumei was humanity, she couldn’t turn away from one of her own.
The idea gave Amelia a bit of comfort. It was small and fragile, but enough to help her breathe easier. She wasn’t the best detective for nothing. Even surrounded by gods, she refused to believe she was powerless.
Her lips parted, her voice cutting through the suffocating silence. “What do you want from me?”
Her words sounded louder than she expected, bouncing strangely off the invisible walls around her. The question was sharp and deliberate, but she couldn’t hide the hint of fear in her voice. No matter how hard she tried to act confident, fear still held on.
For a heartbeat, no one answered. The five figures stood motionless, and the weight of their collective gaze pressed down on her chest like a physical force. But Amelia noticed one of them shift—the one who had been watching her most intently from the start: Kronii, the Warden of Time.
Her face was already serious, but now she scowled. It was clear she didn’t like that Amelia was asking questions.
“It’s simple,” Kronii said, her voice low and sharp, every word full of contempt. “You, a pure—a mere human, somehow managed to control time. Presumably through that pocket watch of yours.”
Amelia’s heart skipped when she heard the mention of the watch.
“Every time you stumble. Every time you blunder into danger or find yourself on the verge of death, you turn back the clock. You undo your failures, avoid your end, and pretend the consequences never existed.”
Kronii stepped forward, and it felt like time itself shifted with her. The portal’s glow behind her made her outline stand out, and her shadow stretched across the concrete floor until it almost reached Amelia’s tied feet. “This is unacceptable.”
Her words struck hard.
“First, you run into places you were never meant to find. You meet people—things—you should never have met. And then you keep doing the one thing no mortal should ever try.”
She paused on purpose, narrowing her eyes and letting her accusation hang in the silence.
“You cheat death.”
Those two words broke the silence. The sound lingered in Amelia’s mind long after Kronii stopped speaking.
The Warden let the silence last a moment longer before she spoke again, her voice lower and harsher. “Only certain people—those trained to understand the consequences, the rules, the burden—are allowed to control time freely. You are not. Yet you’ve changed it again and again, just to save yourself.”
Kronii’s eyes were cold and merciless. “Because of you, the balance of this world is on the edge. Because of you, chaos could spread everywhere. All because you wanted to save yourself.”
Amelia’s stomach twisted. Her heart sank under the weight of the accusations. She had always treated the pocket watch as a tool, a miracle, her lifeline. Never once had she considered it cheating death—not like this. But the more she thought about Kronii’s words, the harder they were to ignore. She had died, hadn’t she? Over and over again. Crushed by rocks, torn apart by monsters, falling into traps. And every single time, the watch had pulled her back, acting like a reset, giving her another chance.
It was cheating death.
Her breath was shallow. If she was honest, she had known deep down that her ability was too good, too convenient, too absolute. Maybe even overpowered. She just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
But as Kronii’s words sank in, her guilt turned into something else: frustration.
How could she have known? How could she have guessed that picking up the pocket watch she found by chance would pull her into all of this? How was she supposed to predict that every desperate rewind to save herself might tear apart the universe itself?
She wasn’t a god. She wasn’t some cosmic being. She was just a woman. A detective. A human.
Her hands curled into fists as much as the chains let her.
And on top of everything, she still wasn’t sure any of this was real. What if the Council was just a story her tired mind had made up? The thought wasn’t comforting, but it lingered in the back of her mind.
Amelia took a slow breath, trying to steady herself. Think logically, she told herself. That was what she always did. But it was hard to stay logical with five beings towering over her, each one so powerful it made her bones ache. Their presence was suffocating, and the way they looked at her, as if she was just a reckless child who had messed with things she couldn’t understand, made her skin crawl.
She had never felt so small.
But then she paused.
Amelia looked away from Kronii’s sharp glare and found Mumei. Surely the Guardian of Civilisation would understand. Of everyone here, Mumei stood for humanity itself. She held every memory, every invention, every act of kindness or cruelty people had ever done. If anyone could understand Amelia, it would be her.
Her throat tightened as she tried to speak. “M–Mumei?” Her voice cracked, sounding thinner than she wanted. The chains rattled softly as she moved, desperate to be noticed.
“Can’t… Can’t you speak for me?” the detective pleaded, her words stumbling out. “I never knew my time-traveling would cause this much damage! I wasn’t trying to break the world. I just wanted to help people!”
Her plea hung in the air. But what came back wasn’t comfort, or understanding, or even anger.
There was only silence. Mumei didn’t say a word. She didn’t even look at Amelia. stood apart from the others, her gaze distant, turned somewhere into the void as though she hadn’t heard a thing. Her expression was unreadable—not the stern fury of Kronii, nor the cosmic vastness of Sana, nor the quiet power of Fauna. She just seemed uninterested. Detached.
Amelia’s chest tightened even more. “Why won’t you…” she whispered, but the words faded before she could finish.
It seemed like Mumei wanted nothing to do with any of this, as if even noticing Amelia was too much. Maybe she was embarrassed that a human, her responsibility, had caused all this. Maybe she couldn’t face the idea that humanity, fragile as it was, had once again pushed things toward disaster. Or maybe, Amelia thought with a sinking feeling, maybe Mumei just didn’t care.
Her heart sank at the thought.
She turned her head and looked at the others, hoping—almost pleading—for any sign of empathy. Sana’s face stayed neutral and unreadable, her gaze heavy, as if she cared more about cosmic problems than Amelia’s struggles. Fauna’s green eyes showed no kindness, only a serious judgment that felt as certain as nature taking back what was never meant to stay. Baelz, on the other hand, looked completely entertained. A mischievous grin spread across her face, her eyes shining with excitement, as if this was just a show put on for her enjoyment.
That grin made Amelia’s stomach churn.
She swallowed hard and looked back at Mumei, but the Guardian stayed silent. There was no sign of recognition, no movement at all. The distance between them remained, along with Mumei’s refusal to respond.
Kronii noticed, as expected. The Warden of Time shifted and narrowed her eyes, giving Mumei a sharp, almost mocking look, like a teacher catching a student who won’t answer in class. Kronii let out a quiet scoff and crossed her arms, clearly irritated.
Amelia’s pulse quickened. Kronii knew. Somehow, she seemed to understand exactly what Amelia was trying to do—reaching for the one Council member who might have defended her. And Kronii wasn’t going to allow it.
The Warden looked back at her with a cold, unyielding stare. Amelia’s stomach dropped again. She had been caught, her desperation plain for everyone to see.
Her hope in Mumei had been nothing more than a fragile thread, and Kronii had just cut it.
“Enough of that.” Kronii’s voice cut through the silence, sharp and final. She had lost all patience. “The Council as a whole will decide what happens to you,” she said, her tone cold and steady. “Regardless of whether you knew the consequences or not.”
She raised her hand and snapped her fingers. The sound echoed in an odd way, lasting much longer than normal, as if the emptiness around them made it linger.
Suddenly, five thrones appeared behind each member of the Council.
These were no ordinary seats. Each was made with such care and meaning that Amelia could tell they were more than thrones; they were part of the Council members themselves.
The first throne to catch her eye was Sana’s. It floated several feet above the ground, looking like a small version of Saturn with rings that shimmered as if made of stardust. It was both beautiful and immense, reminding Amelia how vast Sana’s domain truly was.
Fauna’s throne stayed close to the ground, made from living wood wrapped with vines and blooming flowers that seemed to grow as she sat. Its roots dug into the floor, as if nature itself was taking over the darkness, shaped by Fauna’s power.
Kronii’s throne was made of smooth, dark obsidian, cold and perfectly shaped. Faint gears lined its edges, ticking and shifting in strange patterns. Each movement of the gears felt connected to Amelia’s heartbeat, as if time itself was measuring her.
Baelz’s throne was the opposite: its shape kept changing, flickering from a bright carnival chair to a jagged, spiked seat, then to something that looked like a beanbag, and then shifting again. It was hard to look at it for long without feeling dizzy.
Finally, Mumei’s seat looked plain at first. It was just a simple wooden chair, but the longer Amelia looked, the more unsettling it felt. The carvings on its surface seemed to change, showing new stories with every blink: a city rising, a war starting, a family gathering, a civilisation falling apart. It was simple, but somehow more disturbing than the others.
A cold breeze swept over Amelia as the five took their seats. The thrones rose a little, lifting the Council members above her. From below, they looked even bigger, staring down with an authority that felt complete. None of them looked kind. None showed any warmth.
For the first time in ages, Amelia felt small. She was painfully aware of how vulnerable she was.
Still, she refused to give in. She clenched her jaw and straightened up as much as the chains let her. “So what,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “are you going to hold a trial or something? A council meeting to decide my fate?”
Her words sounded a little defiant, maybe even cocky. She wasn’t sure if it was real courage or just her desperation showing.
Baelz was the first to react. A sharp snigger burst from her lips, the sound halfway between a laugh and a bark. She leaned back into her ever-changing throne, clearly entertained by Amelia’s attempt to sound confident. Her mismatched eyes glinted with mischief as if this whole ordeal was the best show she’d seen in ages.
Kronii stayed stone-faced. She rolled her eyes slowly and deliberately, not amused by Amelia’s bravado or Baelz’s reaction. She folded her arms across her chest with a quick, sharp movement.
“Of course, Sherlock,” Kronii said dryly, her voice dripping with disdain. “We—” she gestured briefly to the others, though her gaze never left Amelia—“will decide your fate from here.”
Being called “Sherlock” hurt more than Amelia wanted to admit. It was meant to mock her, turning her life’s work as a detective into a joke.
Amelia let out a slow breath through her nose and narrowed her eyes. If Kronii wanted defiance, she would get it. Amelia rolled her eyes at Baelz’s amusement, then stared straight at the Warden of Time. Even in chains, she met Kronii’s gaze with all the defiance she had.
If they were going to judge her, she wouldn’t just sit there and cower.
“Fine,” Amelia said at last. Her voice grew harder, even though her stomach was in knots.
She straightened her shoulders and looked at each of them in turn. “Have your little council meeting. But let me make one thing clear: I am not a danger to this world. I didn’t know my time-traveling would cause harm. It’s ridiculous to punish me for something I didn’t even know was wrong.”
Her words were sharper than she meant, full of the frustration she’d felt since Kronii accused her of “cheating death.” She hadn’t meant to be reckless; she was only trying to help. Yet now she was standing trial before gods.
Kronii’s scowl deepened right away. She looked like she was about to lash out at Amelia with cutting words. For a moment, Amelia braced herself, sure that Kronii was about to attack her with words.
But the words never came.
Instead, Kronii took a slow breath through her nose, turned away, and folded her arms. She flicked her head dismissively and spoke to the other Council members. “Let’s begin.”
Her tone was cold and businesslike. The discussion began without Amelia, as if she wasn’t even worth a reply. That hurt more than being yelled at.
Amelia’s throat tightened, but she kept quiet. If they wanted to talk about her as if she wasn’t there, fine. She would listen.
Fauna leaned forward first. She had the gentlest presence of them all, her throne covered in vines and flowers that seemed to grow with her words. “She’s human,” Fauna said softly, her voice gentle as wind through leaves. “And humans make mistakes when they don’t understand the weight of what they’ve been given. If Amelia truly didn’t know the consequences of wielding time, then the fault isn’t entirely hers.”
Her words weren’t exactly a defense, but Amelia heard a hint of sympathy. It was something, at least.
Sana gave a small nod, her eyes faraway but gentle. The tiny Saturn behind her sent soft light across her face. “Space and the cosmos are full of accidents. Collisions, eruptions, births, deaths. Mistakes happen. If she didn’t know, maybe punishment shouldn’t be the first thing we do.”
The weight in Amelia’s chest loosened a little. Two of them—two godlike beings—sounded like they might actually understand.
But that relief quickly faded.
Baelz’s laugh echoed through the chamber, sharp as thunder. The chaotic goddess lounged sideways on her ever-changing throne, legs kicking in the air while her seat shifted from carnival ride to spiked throne to beanbag in seconds. “Oh, this is rich,” Baelz cackled, pretending to wipe away a tear. “The little detective crying ‘it’s not my fault!’ like a schoolgirl caught cheating on a test. I love it. Pure entertainment. You all keep debating, but personally? I say let her stew a while longer. Chaos loves a good mess.”
Amelia’s blood boiled at Baelz’s amusement, but she stayed quiet. Reacting would only make Baelz happier.
Kronii looked furious as always. Her jaw was clenched so tightly that Amelia wondered how it hadn’t cracked. She listened to Fauna and Sana with no patience, rolling her eyes and tapping her fingers on her throne as if every second was an insult. Her glare kept returning to Amelia, cold and full of contempt, making the detective’s skin crawl.
But Mumei unsettled Amelia more than anyone else. The Guardian of Civilisation still hadn’t spoken. Not once. While the others argued or scoffed, she remained eerily quiet. Her eyes were cast downward, unfocused, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She wasn’t looking at Amelia. She wasn’t looking at her fellow Council members either. She looked somewhere else entirely.
In that silence, Amelia noticed something that made her stomach twist.
Mumei’s face wasn’t angry, stern, or mocking. It was sad. Maybe even embarrassed. Her eyes flicked to Amelia for a moment, and Amelia saw a hint of conflict before Mumei quickly looked away.
Seeing this shook Amelia more than Kronii’s anger or Baelz’s laughter. Mumei wasn’t as distant as she seemed; she was deeply troubled. It felt like the whole situation weighed on her in a way the others didn’t feel. She represented humanity, after all. Maybe she should have spoken for Amelia. But instead, she sat quietly, ashamed, as if Amelia’s presence was something she couldn’t face.
It wasn’t indifference. It was something much heavier.
That silence hurt more than any accusation.
Amelia tapped her foot restlessly on the cold floor. At first, she tried to follow what the Council was saying, listening hard to every word that echoed in the chamber. But soon, the voices blended together, and the harsh debate grated on her nerves.
She could only catch bits and pieces. Fauna’s soft, steady voice rose above the others now and then, words like “smaller punishment” and “mercy” drifting to her like faint lifelines in the chaos. But Kronii’s voice was sharp and cold, slicing through everything else and drowning out the rest. Amelia couldn’t make out the exact words, but she could hear the anger.
Then there was Baelz. The trickster’s voice slipped in and out, high-pitched and gleeful, throwing fuel onto the fire to watch it burn. Her laughter rang loudest of all, every cackle making Amelia’s skin crawl. She couldn’t see Baelz clearly from where she was chained, but she could feel her grinning, leaning into the chaos, enjoying every second.
The arguments got louder. Voices overlapped. The chamber seemed to shake with their power, as if the air itself was growing heavier under the weight of their words. Amelia shifted in her chains, her heart beating faster.
She hated all of it. She hated being treated like a problem instead of a person who had struggled to get here. She hated feeling powerless, chained up and forced to listen to people who could decide her fate in an instant. Every second waiting for their decision made her chest tighten, her frustration turning into desperation.
Then an idea came to her.
Amelia glanced at Mumei again. The Guardian of Civilisation stayed out of the chaos. While the others argued, Mumei sat still, hands in her lap and a distant look on her face. She didn’t join in or try to interrupt. She just sat there, withdrawn and silent, which felt strange in the middle of all the shouting.
But Amelia noticed something else. Mumei’s throne was a little closer to her than the others. It was only a step or two, but in this stifling chamber, even that small gap felt like a door left partly open.
It was risky. Very risky. But it was the only chance Amelia had. Her fingers tightened around the chains binding her wrists. She leaned forward, tugging at them until the metal scraped painfully against her skin, trying to shift her body just enough to close that distance. The links clanged dully against the floor, swallowed by the din of the Council’s argument.
Then, making her voice rise above the noise, Amelia called out. She kept it quiet enough not to draw the rest of the Council’s attention, but loud enough for Mumei to hear.
“Mumei!” The name echoed, cutting through the noise like a desperate plea.
(TO BE CONTINUED)