The Enemy is Laplace (4000 characters)

The enemy is Laplace

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1. A world drawn as a single line

"If there were an intellect that could grasp all the mechanical states of matter at a given moment and the forces that move them, and could analyze that vast data, then for that intellect, nothing would be uncertain, and the future would appear to its eyes just as the past does."

This thought experiment, left behind by the 18th-century mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace, was spoken of by people in the early 20th-century Russian Empire in a strange way. Just as Dr. Frankenstein's monster eventually came to be called by the doctor's name, they called that deterministic worldview itself "Laplace"—the name of a cold intellect that rules over fate.

The sacred rule of Tsar Nicholas II, the balls of the nobility, and the footsteps of revolution creeping in from afar—all felt as if they were connected by an unchangeable chain of destiny. Free will was nothing more than a fleeting phantom created by the steam of vodka on a cold winter night. Choices were merely a re-experience, sliding along ice tracks that had already been laid. From the glory of the empire to the ashes of its collapse, all things in the universe were a tapestry dyed in blood and snow, woven from a single thread of causality.

In Laplace's universe, time was just a single absolute straight line—a relentless trajectory that moved forward without ever turning back, like the flow of the frozen Neva River.

The year 1907. The year the miracle of the mad monk Grigori Rasputin stopping the bleeding of Tsarevich Alexei with his prayers shook the court of the imperial capital, St. Petersburg. My wife, Setsu, began to show the first signs of schizophrenia. Phantom shadows flickered in her eyes, and nightly whispers eroded her mind. It was as if, from that single straight line drawn by Laplace, from the madness of this frozen empire, only your delicate soul was about to be heartlessly shaken off.

Setsu was a beautiful woman of Eastern descent, and I met her in my laboratory. Her smile was a light that cleared the gray sky of St. Petersburg for just a moment.

My name is Hijun Kouma. As a mere scholar from the East, from Japan, I was a man who affirmed and accepted this deterministic world through the logic of science. I attempted to unravel your condition using psychiatric papers and the ancient wisdom of the East. But the illness continued to worsen relentlessly.

In 1916, as the winds of despair blowing from the muddy, chaotic battlefields of the First World War covered the streets of St. Petersburg, she severed her own lifeline with her own hands. The moment your breath stopped in my arms, and the light faded from your eyes—in a room where snow particles danced silently, I felt the end of the world.

At that moment, my story, too, should have ended there.

2. Rebellion against Laplace and the "Theater"

But I chose to rebel against Laplace.

After your death, I fell into the darkness of the empire. An old book I found in my despair led me to the foggy back alleys of the imperial capital. There lurked a secret society called the "Theater"—people who viewed time itself as a stage and manipulated consciousness like actors. They possessed the art of time travel, moving only the spirit into a past body.

Why was I, who came from the East, chosen for that ritual? They said, "There is something in your soul that is not bound by linear time." I did not understand what that meant. But if I could save you, I was prepared to make a pact with the devil.

I became a traveler whose spirit alone journeyed back up the frozen Neva River of causality. To rewrite a single line of the ending—your death—I became a lonely prisoner carefully digging through the crystalline structure of time. The sensation of the journey back was eerily vivid each time, and the memories of the past body enveloped my spirit. But even so, I moved forward—no, I went back into the past.

3. The rewritten script

The first journey back. The eve of your death, the winter of 1916. A small apartment in St. Petersburg. Outside, snow tapped against the windowpane, and in the room where the fire in the fireplace flickered weakly, Setsu lay on the bed, listening to the phantom whispers.

As my past self, I sat by her side and gently held her hand. I whispered, "Setsu, tomorrow will surely be better."

However, in your eyes, which seemed to sense the final act, my words rang hollow. Your gaze was distant, and my existence dissolved like mist. I realized later that my encouragement had only given you the resignation that it was already too late.

The result did not change. You died that night, just as before.

The next regression. I went back to a few months before the illness began to truly consume you, just before your condition became critical.

As my past self, I recommended a new medicine to you. I offered you tea secretly laced with a tranquilizer smuggled from Western Europe.

But you refused, saying you didn't need medicine. Your gentle refusal only amplified my desperation. I tried to persuade you with a harsh tone I would never have used as my past self, and in doing so, I damaged the trust between us.

The progression of the illness only accelerated.

I went back even further. Before the signs of the illness appeared, when you had not yet lost your smile. We spent our days walking in a park in St. Petersburg.

As my past self, I attempted to use Eastern hypnosis to heal the wounds in your heart. In a quiet room, with the flickering light of a candle, I stroked your memories with gentle words. "Breathe deeply and let the shadows of the past flow away."

But my technique was amateurish. I misjudged the depth of the hypnosis and stepped too far into your subconscious. I inadvertently unearthed the memories sleeping in the depths of your heart—the pain that should never have been touched. After waking from the hypnosis, you were plagued by nightmares for several days.

My intervention only hurt your heart further. I had sown the seeds of the illness myself.

I learned. As long as I act as my past self, there will always be a flaw somewhere. If that is the case, I must rewrite the actor that is me from the very beginning.

I made contact with you before you met me. St. Petersburg in 1905, when you were still young. I listened to the loneliness of your childhood and removed the thorns from your heart with kind words.

But my timing was always off. I was silent when I should have comforted, and I spoke too much when I should have listened. The desperation of one who knows the future distorted the natural flow of our meeting. You kept me at a distance with suspicion, and eventually, you rejected my very existence.

Then, I will go back even further. To the beginning of myself.

I attempted the boldest regression—I transferred my consciousness to my adolescent self at the beginning of my life, completely overwriting my past self. In the body of a young Kouma before he met Setsu, I played the part of the perfect lover.

I removed all the thorns of adolescence in advance, healed the wounds of the heart beforehand, and carefully constructed the ideal man you sought. We walked together through the snowy landscape of St. Petersburg, read books in a warm room, and lived peaceful days without knowing the shadows of revolution.

Your illness, thanks to my constant care, disappeared without ever manifesting. You passed away peacefully in happiness, before I did. I, now old, placed flowers at your grave and smiled quietly.

In that moment, I had finally succeeded in rewriting Laplace's script. The joy of victory filled my chest with warmth.

And I, too, at the end of a long life, closed my eyes peacefully in a warm bed.

4. The Despair of the Time Plane

However, that peace ended in an instant.

When I opened my eyes, I was a baby.

Meaningless cries spilled from my mouth as I let out my first breath. But my mind was clear. The memories of having died as an old man remained vivid.

And my consciousness, expanded by the power of time travel, "saw" an even more terrifying sight.

Looking around, I saw that all of humanity was repeating the same eternal loop from death to birth. Every time a person grows old and dies, they return to being a baby and walk through life once more. And within that life, the world lines branch out with every point of contact with neighbors—every choice, every encounter.

My vision captured the entire picture of time.

The world was not a single straight line. It was a plane.

From the beginning of humanity—the single point of Adam and Eve—countless world lines radiated outward. Infinite possibilities and infinite choices spread out like a giant fan, forming a single, staggering canvas.

Laplace's straight line was nothing more than a poor shadow play that forcibly projected that infinite richness into a single dimension.

And then, I realized.

Every time I traveled back in time to save you, the world line split. Your death, which I could not prevent, seeped out like a black stain and spread infinitely.

This happy single line I created was nothing more than a single, cruelly beautiful moon floating in a dark night of countless tragedies I had discarded.

Behind this world line where your smile shines, the sight of countless versions of you coughing up blood, screaming, and disappearing in loneliness was hammered into my mind one after another.

Every time I saved you in one world line, you died in ten world lines. You died in a hundred world lines. In thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of world lines.

My victory was an illusion.

My love was nothing more than a machine that mass-produced countless deaths.

5. The Door to God

But that was not all.

An even more terrifying truth eroded my mind.

I am now beginning my life again as a baby. And I possess the power of time travel. Which means...

Just by me living, the world lines diverge.

Every time I meet someone, every time I make a choice, every time I draw a breath, the world branches out. My very existence creates infinite possibilities. I exert infinite influence over my entire range of activity, continuously increasing the world lines infinitely.

I don't care about you anymore.

The problem is not you. It is the very structure of this universe.

The God (Laplace) who drew this cruel surface. This absurd world that permits infinite tragedy.

I will not forgive it.

I no longer think about saving a single person.

If it comes to this, I will increase the world lines as much as I can. With my will, with my choices, and with the color of my despair, I will rewrite everything on this surface (world).

The ultimate technique of the 'Theater' was not merely time travel. It was the power to manipulate the world lines themselves as a stage—a door to the realm of God, controlling all possibilities simultaneously.

I am standing before that door now.

In the form of a baby, with the memories of an old man, as a being who has attained the vision of God.

If I open it, I will become God. All world lines will equally become mine.

Or, all world lines will equally be stained by my despair.

Either is fine.

Laplace, I will shatter your straight lines along with the surface itself.

Infinite branches, infinite choices, infinite possibilities.

I will paint over them all with my own hands.

To be continued

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