Toshi frowned at the leaf.

 

He looked at the small pile of leaves he had swept up, then at the one stubborn leaf he just couldn't move no matter how hard he tried. He reached down and grabbed the leaf. It was stuck. Not just stuck, fixed. He pulled and pulled and pulled.  Every time he pulled he felt a tingling that made his teeth itch. It should have broke apart if it was a normal leaf, but it didn't. Pulling and twisting just made that itching in his teeth worse. Toshi planted both feet on either side of the leaf and grabbed it with both hands. He leaned back with a steady pull and as he did it felt like the world was slowing down, like he was pulling through an invisible, viscous fluid. He felt a stirring in his stomach, like when you have to give a speech in front of a group of strangers.

 

Abruptly it broke free.

 

He stumbled backwards, flailing about, but recovered and held the leaf up triumphantly. His joy filled expression was immediately crushed when a leaf fell off a nearby tree, fluttered to the ground, and landed right where the first leaf once lay. The old man spoke with a tone that seemed honestly impressed, "I'm shocked you managed to move it."

 

Toshi was back at the shrine where he had first met the old man. He had come here a few times since that first meeting, but this was first time since that the old man was here. Like the first time they met, nobody else was around. They had the place to themselves. Toshi held the leaf up to the old man, "Why you fucking with me like this?" The old man looked around, "What do you mean?" Toshi gestured about the empty courtyard, "You said you had another lesson. You asked me to sweep up the grounds. Why did you fuck with this one leaf?" He gestured to the leaf that was its replacement, "You trying to teach me futility?"

 

The old man shook his head, "I had nothing to do with that leaf. I'm trying to show you how this world works. You have been figuring it out yourself, but I feel the need to clarify." He walked over to the new leaf and picked it up with no effort. Again, another leaf fluttered over to fall in the exact same spot. The old man slowly walked over to Toshi, handing his leaf over, "Compare them." He walked past Toshi to sit down on a bench, "I'm sorry I'm annoying you, but it isn't easy to just explain these things. It's better to just show you."

 

Toshi looked puzzled then looked at one leaf, then the other, then back again. He started to blink and eyed them closely, holding them up to the sun, "Hold it." He walked over to try and pick up the latest leaf, but it was stuck just like the first. Instead he just leaned down to eye it and compare it to the other two. Toshi stood up, "They're identical." The old man nodded. Toshi walked over to hold out the leaves to the old man, "No no no... I mean... PERFECTLY identical. All three. What gives?"

 

The old man shrugged, "It's a combination of factors. The primary factor is what is called serendipity." The old man reached out to take one of the leaves, "When I made this world, originally, it was just a thought experiment. A simulation. A computer program, if you will, but... not. Hard to explain what it was in terms you'd understand. But, it wasn't... real." He paused, "As if such a word actually exists." Toshi sat down next to the old man, "What happened?"

 

The old man pointed at Toshi, "The 'program' was based on your earth. It made it much simpler to 'code' if it ran off a... 'real world'. I had a theory that I could fix the gender equality issue. I had a bunch of theories I was running and this world was but one of those experiments. Now, yes, billions of lives were created, lived, and died, but none of them were real. Just... a simulation." He let out a long breath through his nose, "Then mana started to leak from your world." Toshi blinked, "Huh? Wait? My world has magic?"

 

The old man shook his head, "No. Well. Yes. Well, it shouldn't." He frowned, "Actually, not as you understand it. That's what makes your world so interesting. No other world with living creatures with souls exists like it. It is in the deepest part of the dark matter shoals. Dark matter KILLS magic. It's complicated and hard to explain, but life itself depends on magic." He pointed at Toshi, "You should not exist." Toshi replied sarcastically, "Hate to disappoint you." The old man laughed, "No no no! Far from it! I am fascinated by it! The rest of the cosmos didn't even know you existed until your second world war. Two atomic bombs blowing up along ley lines and sending nearly a quarter of a million souls into the afterlife all at once SHATTERED the local dark matter shoal. It quite literally tunneled its way out to the rest of the cosmos."

 

The old man paused for a bit before he continued, "You know about humans who live at high elevations? They adapt to the conditions and their body gets used to low levels of oxygen. They get more effective at using what little they get." Toshi nodded. The old man rolled his hand in the air, "Same concept. It seems your world drifted into the dark matter slowly, at an angle. It took maybe two thousand years. Magic died very slowly, but humans in your world got more effective at using what little mana was in your world, so, over time, each individual soul in your world got stronger... and stronger."

 

Toshi looked thoughtful, "How much stronger?" The old man squinted, "Well... if the typical human soul outside your world is a one, then the typical human in your world is a five." Toshi nodded, "Five times stronger, huh?" The old man shook his head, "Think richter scale. Ten THOUSAND times stronger." Toshi gaped. The old man nodded, "Oh yes. When those bombs went off, they sent the energy equivalent to one point four BILLION souls in the first blast, and seven hundred and fifty million in the second." Toshi stared off into the distance as he tried to wrap his head around the numbers.

 

The old man leaned back, "I was one of the first to... arrive. At first nobody else really cared. They assumed it would seal itself up and disappear. It was suicide to go there. Gods need energy to live and that world... I'd be lucky if I could live long enough to give a little speech before I imploded." He tilted his head to the side, "But, while your world can't USE mana, you were generating it. A LOT of mana." He gestured as if something was spraying forth, "You were gushing mana out that crack. The force of that much unused, untapped mana shooting out was keeping the fissure open." He sighed, "We... didn't notice at the time. Everyone else just thought it was a curiosity. A footnote in a cosmos full of footnotes." His words took on a hint of pride, "I thought a world without magic was amazing, so I started running-"

 

Toshi abruptly snapped his fingers in the old man's face, "Wait a second." He pointed at the old man, "You said you worked with the god of my world to prevent an accident, but what you just said implies there is no god in my world." The old man sat there, quietly for some time before he responded, "I lied." Toshi glared at him, "WHAT?" The old man held out his hand and waggled it in the air, "Well, technically it was a deception, not quite a lie." Toshi opened his mouth but the old man cut him off, "What? You want God to admit he has no clue how you got here? You want God to say, 'Fucked if I know'? How is that going to make you feel?"

 

Toshi slowly closed his mouth and looked thoughtful. The old man rubbed the back of his neck, "Truth is, I don't know how you got here and sending you back safely... even less so." The old man looked at the ground, "You see, I ran a bunch of simulations. A bunch of 'what if'? questions and one of them was an attempt to bring about gender equity." He gestured with his hands, "Bring the women up, bring the men down, try to get them to meet in the middle. See what would happen, you know... just for shits and giggles." He dropped his hands, "Then... souls started appearing in the simulation." Toshi blinked, "Wait... if it's just a simulation-" The old man shook his head, "It's not a simulation as you think of one." He took a deep breath before continuing, "It turns out, for some reason, mana with the same resonance as my simulation began to... well... accumulate inside it. People in your world can't do magic, but you can generate mana, and people would dream about a world like the one I created and that made mana which..."

 

Toshi finished the sentence, "Made your simulation... real."

 

The old man nodded, "Yeah." He sighed, "And it comes with a price." He held up the leaf, "This world is a reflection of your old one, so the mana from your world while... feeding this world also... controls it. This world has an alternate history and you would think it would be radically different. The longer time rolls on, the more deviations we should have." He gestured to the leaf he was holding, "But the mana keeps pulling this world back into a reflection of your world." The old man twirled the leaf around in his hand, "A warped, lagging, fun house version of a reflection of your world." He looked defeated, "Because I can't sustain this world without a constant influx of fresh mana."

 

Toshi looked at his leaf, "Serendipity."

 

The old man nodded, "Yes. However..." He pointed at Toshi's leaf, "You managed to actually pull that leaf." He shook his head, "Hell. You actually managed to notice it was stuck. That's a miracle in and of itself." Toshi blinked, "Huh? Why?" The old man looked up, "Serendipity makes everyone here just... accept the changes. No matter how strange or convoluted things get, everyone just rolls with it because this world is a reflection of yours." His expression darkened, "This world is a tail being wagged."

 

Toshi held his leaf up to the sun, "But I managed to change it... at least a little bit." The old man nodded, "Yes. I thought this could happen, but I didn't want to confuse you by explaining it when you just might... slip under the effects of serendipity. I didn't want to needlessly worry you about something you might never notice." Toshi dropped his leaf and it abruptly started to dry out. Before it even hit the ground it turned into a brown, curled up, dead leaf. Toshi blinked, "Will that happen all the time?" The old man shook his head, "No. It's only this obvious because we're in a loading screen. In the normal flow of time, serendipity will only try so hard then give up and just move onto the next... correction."

 

Toshi snapped his head to look at the old man, "Wait... Loading Screen?" The old man gestured about, "Where do you think everyone went? They aren't here because I haven't fully loaded the temple." Toshi blinked, "So, this is a computer simulation." The old man smacked his forehead, "No! AUGH!" He tilted his head back and looked at the sky, "Okay. Toshi. Think about time and space. Okay? Just think about those two concepts." Toshi nodded, "Okay. I-"

 

The old man locked eyes with Toshi, "You're wrong." Toshi opened his mouth, but the old man kept talking, "Whatever you are going to say, think of, or ever think of, is wrong. You are wrong." he rolled his hand, "No matter how many examples I give you, or metaphors I explain, you will never get it right." Toshi blinked and squinted with one eye, "Oh... kay." The old man shrugged, "I can only explain a fraction of it in terms you might understand so you at least misunderstand in a productive manner."

 

Toshi rubbed his forehead, "This is making my brain hurt." He leveled a flat glare at the old man, "Why you telling me all this now?" The old man looked away then back to Toshi, "You are generating a lot of mana." Toshi blinked, "Wait... I can use magic?" The old man shook his head, "No. Magic doesn't exist here, just like in your world. If anything, this world has even LESS magic than your world, because it is a world that is based on what people think a mirror of your world would be, not what an actual mirror of your world would be. Things that are hidden from the public wouldn't appear here. Chances are the fissure is allowing magic to slowly bleed back into your world, but because nobody believes in magic, even if people can use magic there, there won't be any here."

 

Toshi scratched his head, "I'm... confused, but okay. I'm generating a lot of mana. How much?"

The old man was silent.

Toshi squinted, "How... much?"

The old man cleared his throat, "Now... when I said the typical soul in your world is a five, that is just the low end. Some souls-"

Toshi started to sound a little panicked, "How. MUCH?"

The old man looked at Toshi out of the corner of his eye, "I want you to stay calm."

Toshi's eyes grew wide, "I'm like... ten thousand times a normal soul... right?"

The old man shook his head.

Toshi frowned, "Uh... so what? ten... million?" He laughed nervously.

The old man said, "Ten billion."

 

Toshi blinked, "What?" The old man shrugged, "Now, you can't DO much of anything with that power. However, you are doing wonders for energizing the universe. I mean, it was a bit unstable before you arrived, but you are single handedly pumping out more mana than everyone else on the planet combined." He squinted and waggled his head from side to side, "Well... eighty. Eighty... five percent? Maybe ninety. It's close. Damn close." Toshi closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose for a minute then asked, "So that means...?"

 

The old man patted Toshi on the shoulder, "It means if you think your life is strange, you ain't seen nothing yet." Toshi lowered his hand, "Details!" The old man shrugged, "You are able to disrupt serendipity, but that doesn't mean it won't constantly fight back. I'm not telling you what to do. Far from it." He turned to look at the ground and folded his hands, "To be honest, I always felt guilty about this place. I made it by accident and then it filled up with people. I can't just abandon the place, but it's not very stable. I'd like it to have it's own destiny, but up until your arrival, there just wasn't enough native born energy to keep this place stable this close to the dark matter shoals."

 

Toshi snapped his fingers, "Wait. My world drifted into the dark matter, Can you move this world away from... it?" The old man narrowed his eyes at Toshi, "Can I just MOVE a universe? Oh. SURE! Yeah. No problem! I'll just call Universe-Haul!" He started to pretend to dial a number and held an imaginary phone up to his ear, "Yes? Uni-Haul? You got any trucks I could fit a PLANET in as well as a quadrillion square miles of bubble wrap?" Toshi frowned, "You don't need to be sarcastic about it." The old man looked at Toshi, "Yes. Yes I do. Because if we moved it away, we'd also lose what mana was coming in from your world." He sighed and rubbed his face, "Look. I just noticed that you were starting to catch on to the serendipity and felt it was time to give you the full story, that's all."

 

He put a hand on Toshi's shoulder, "I don't expect anything out of you. You aren't here to save the world, although the world is a better place with you in it." He squeezed, "I guess, if anything, just... be yourself. Don't feel you have to fight the status quo, but don't be surprised if you do and the status quo fights back. If you think your life is a series of impossible coincidences, that's only because it is." He looked over at the leaf on the ground, "I'm sorry you got torn from your world. I'm sorry you wound up in this strange situation. I'm sorry I can't do more for you because if I interfere, it'll be far more of harm than good."

 

Toshi squinted at the old man, "Huh?" The old man looked back, "Okay. Imagine you are looking through a microscope at a bacteria. It's about to be eaten by another bacteria. You could try and do something to save the bacteria, except you are so large it is likely you will fuck up everything else just to save one bacteria." He gestured, "Why you think we're talking in a loading screen? I'm too big. I can't really do any fine tuning in the world without causing a ton of unintended consequences." Toshi looked thoughtful, "What about me?"

 

The old man blinked, "What about you?" Toshi pointed at himself, "Ten billion souls?" The old man shrugged, "You are remarkably compact, actually. Anything you do will have consequences, but not 'Tokyo slides into the Pacific Ocean' level of consequences." He gave Toshi a pat on the shoulder, "Don't worry about it. If there's any real problems, I'll give you a heads up. Just... live your life as best you can. And try not to worry so much." Toshi hunched over, "Easy for you to say."

 

The old man shook his head, "Seriously. Stop being so serious. You're a kid, start acting like one." He gave Toshi another pat on the shoulder, "You'll be okay. Don't worry so much. Oh. One more thing." The old man reached behind him and pulled out a grey box, "Happy Birthday." Toshi took the box, slowly opened it, then blinked, "A laptop?" The old man nodded, "A ToughTop. Top of the line, made of stainless steel. You could drop that off a four story building and it'd just bounce." He smiled, "Hope you enjoy it." Toshi opened it up and smiled, "Hey... thanks." The old man slowly stood up and stretched, "Well, just trying to make it up to you. We won't get a chance to talk again for a while. I'm going to be busy, so try and stay out of trouble, okay?"

 

Toshi slipped the ToughTop into his backpack, "Don't I always?" The old man frowned, "This isn't your old world. You've gotten lucky. Stop making assumptions. You're not bulletproof. You're not immortal. This is REAL. Stop acting like it's not." He stabbed a finger in Toshi's face, "Start Taking Danger Seriously." Toshi went silent, then nodded while casting his gaze downward, "I'm... starting to figure that out." The old man nodded, "Good." He gave Toshi a final pat on the shoulder, "Now get out of here before your mother gets concerned half to death again."

 

Toshi looked up at the old man and grinned.