176 Conjecture

"Val, now that the 'food' is out of the way, we can finally have some peace of mind to think about everything," he muttered, and then put the cup of hot chocolate down.

"First, let's go over what we've learned from the battle this morning-- I can't believe it's just this morning. It felt like it was going for ages," he said in amusement.

"We know more about higher rank Contractbound abilities now, and we even managed to copy one. Thanks to you, Val, we can now use Mastro Gianni's ability to extensify an intention. It's just twice a day and I am very sure that the power is much less than the original, but at least we succeeded in copying it. It was very difficult to do so, wasn't it, Val?"

Valentine had copied it without the Mastro knowing and it was indeed an arduous process. He had to focus on the man's ability every time he activated it and to successfully copy the ability, it took him more than one try.

"I wish we could also copy the man called Bruin's ability to destroy an entire building as I said before, but it's impossible. We didn't even meet him again after that," he paused and then took another sip of his hot chocolate. The thick, warm liquid entered his mouth and filled it with its rich, sweet flavor.

Gulp!

He swallowed the liquid and put down his cup.

"I am also curious about Mastro Gianni's tentacle ability-- or vines, I'm not sure what they were. They looked awesome! He was like some kind of big shot standing in the middle while his tentacle underlings were doing all his work. If we had that, we could also look menacing, especially in a dark alley at night," said Graham quietly; his tone was cheerful and expectant.

"Now, enough about the abilities. There are other things that we need to think about, Val, one of them being the presumed 'apocalypse'. This is the first time we've heard of something like that, isn't it? The only apocalypse we know about is the one that will happen if we don't stop the Pale Society, and it'll only befall this city-- at least according to my divination," he paused; his voice grew heavier.

"Let's try to use divination," Graham decided with conviction.

He adjusted his seat so that he would be facing the wall while the other people wouldn't be able to see what was in front of him. After that, Graham took out his lighter and triggered the spark wheel, causing a small flame to be lit. He focused on the gently burning flame and concentrated.

'What is the apocalypse?'

'Apocalypse: affording a revelation or prophecy. ... predicting or presaging imminent disaster and total or universal destruction.'

After that, the image disappeared as Graham facepalmed.

"I wasn't looking for the dictionary definition of the word... *sigh*" he took a deep breath, "Let's try again, Val. This time, my question should be worded carefully.

Staring at the flame that was still burning on the tip of the lighter, he asked another question in his mind.

'How will this world end?'

The flame in his hand burned brighter and brighter until it was almost uncontrollable. There was no image showing, only flames that wouldn't stop burning. Graham's hand became hotter, so he had to force stop it.

"I ask that you stop burning!"

Swoosh!

The flame was snuffed out like there was a strong wind blowing it out. Graham examined his right hand to see if there was any burn damage on it, but fortunately, there was none. The lighter was also somehow alright, and he was very thankful for it. It was his favorite lighter and he would be very upset if it got broken.

Click!

Graham closed the lid of the black lighter and put it back inside his pocket. His divination attempt had failed and it almost cost him his precious lighter, so he had to be more careful.

"I am sure I'm not strong enough to know about something like that, so let's try changing the question a bit," he muttered.

He then raised his hand to call for Mirjam and the latter came ambling leisurely.

"Yes, Graham. Anything you need?" asked Mirjam warmly.

"Can I, by any chance, borrow a lighter?" he asked straight to the point.

Mirjam raised her eyebrow judgingly.

"You don't smoke, do you? And besides, this is a non-smoking area. You can do it outside," she said sternly. She seemed to hate smokers to some extent.

"No, no, no, don't worry. I'm just trying to meditate," he paused, and then his tone became salesmanlike, "It's called 'Flame Meditation' where you sit quietly with a relaxed body. You then stare at a gently burning flame for five minutes. You are guaranteed to be much calmer after that," added Graham, coming up with some excuse. He didn't actually know anything about such a meditation technique.

Mirjam's right eyebrow was still raised and she didn't seem to believe him, but she just shrugged.

"Well, if you say so. Just promise me you won't smoke inside-- or at all," she said, and then went back to another customer.

"Val, it seems that she has a strong aversion to smokers-- or smoking in general. I wonder why?" muttered Graham with curiosity.

Not long after, Mirjam came back with a cheap-looking lighter in her hand that she must have borrowed from another customer. She handed it to Graham while watching him closely, and after making sure he wasn't taking out any cigarettes, she left.

"It would be much easier to use my ability to make the flame float so I won't damage my precious lighter, but we're still visible from outside. Although they shouldn't be able to see the divination because of the distance, a floating flame is still too eye-catching," he muttered weakly.

Using the cheap lighter, Graham created another flame and then focused on it. He had another question in mind first, so he concentrated on it.

'Why does Mirjam hate smokers?'

The flame in his hand burned brighter and slowly, an image appeared on it. The image looked strangely discolored like it was from a distant past. There were two little girls in the image, one was apparently younger than the other. The older one looked to be about five while the younger one was probably about two. Since the question was about Mirjam, Graham could only guess that the older one was little Mirjam, although she looked very different, while the younger one was her sister.

Graham felt like he was watching an old movie at the movie theatre that had no sound with the two girls as the main characters. After a while, there seemed to be someone knocking at the door, because the two girls' attention was fixated in one direction and their faces suddenly looked happy. It was like they were waiting for someone to come home and the person was finally there.

The image then shifted to the doorway where the older girl unlocked the door and opened it. Her happy expression suddenly disappeared when they saw there were two people whom they didn't know instead. The older girl looked scared while the younger one was just curiously playing with one of the people's pants, tugging it repeatedly.

After that, the image once again shifted and this time, it was showing a document that seemed to be a death certificate. The deceased was Frank Osterhout and the cause of death was lung cancer. The death was documented in the year 1947 EH. The image then finally disappeared, leaving Graham rather puzzled.

Holding the lighter in his hand, he began thinking about what he had just seen. At a first glance, it might seem like random scenes put together, but when put in context, he could see what it meant.

"Mirjam's father died of lung cancer when she was just a young girl, leaving her with her younger sister only. I didn't see her mom anywhere in the image, so it's safe to assume her mom had died earlier or had disappeared. No wonder she hates smokers; it reminded her of her late father," he said with a heavy tone, and took a deep breath, "Why didn't my divination show me only the last image about the death certificate. It would have been sufficient to answer the question. Instead, it showed us her childhood first...?"

Graham had just learned another side of Mirjam by pure chance because he needed to borrow a lighter. If he hadn't borrowed one, she wouldn't have shown him her disdain for smokers and he wouldn't have used divination to find out further.

"But we still have an urgent thing to divine," he muttered.

Graham turned his attention back to the flame that was still burning. He thought of another question in his mind and began the fire scrying ritual.

'What big disasters will strike the earth in the future?'

The flame once again burned brightly-- almost violently. However, this time, it was still under control. An image slowly appeared from within the fire, which showed nothing but complete blackness. There was only nothingness as far as his eyes could see. After that, the image disappeared abruptly and Graham was left feeling inexplicably tired; the divination just now had taken most of his stamina.

Pant! Pant!

"I don't understand...! *pant*", he said while breathing heavily. His heart was racing while his face had turned paler than before, instead of redder, "Why is it all black...?!!"

Graham's mental state wasn't really stable after getting that revelation, which was too much for normal people to handle. It was as if his whole world was turned upside-down. He had to quickly think of something in order not to lose his mind.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Cunningness and Transformation, plan the idea in my brain that I am calm right now!"

He chanted quickly and then magically, he began calming down. However, the ability just now took another big chunk of his stamina, leaving him exhausted, and his emotion was still on the verge of breaking if he wasn't careful.

Feeling a little calmer, Graham began racking his brain using what stamina he had left. The divination just now didn't answer his question, but instead, added even more, and it even struck him mentally. He controlled his breathing and tried to recover his stamina and his mental state as quickly as he could while coming up with a possible explanation.

"It wasn't really a disaster, was it, Val? It was just as if everything had disappeared. Maybe that's what will happen in the future? Everything will get reduced to nothing?" he pondered while putting out the flame. He was speaking much faster than usual. "Or maybe my divination just failed and showed me utter nothingness?" he said in denial. He knew that was not the case since failed divination attempts looked different.

The lighter in his hand was put on the table as Graham leaned back in his chair. He rested his chin on his hand while stroking it, rubbing the stubble that had been left there.

"So it is true then that the world will end. That still feels unreal," he said, with a hint of fear in his voice.

He didn't know what he was feeling right now. Besides the fatigue, his emotion was still in a messy jumble because of the revelation, although his ability had managed to make him calmer somehow. Knowing that the world as he knew it would end wasn't something easy to digest. There were still so many things that he wanted to do in this world and so many mysteries he needed to uncover.

Graham suddenly sat straight back up and reached out to the lighter on the table. He lit another fire and focused on the flame.

'When will the world end?'

The flame began burning violently just like the first time and the flame became uncontrollably bigger. The cheap lighter also became very hot and Graham knew that it wouldn't end well if he didn't force stop it. Besides, there was no sign of an image appearing any time soon.

"I ask that you stop burning!"

The flame went out in a snuff as if something had blown it out. He dropped the hot lighter that looked to have been damaged and looked at his hand that was in mild pain. There was nothing serious happening to his right hand, and even if there had been, he would be able to recover quickly as a Contractbound.

"So we are not strong enough to know when it will happen. That's not good enough-- the world might end a century later, or it might end tomorrow. We can never know, Val," he muttered restlessly.

"But worrying about that won't take us anywhere. Let's now try to focus on matters we can think about," he finally made up his mind, although his emotion was still in a mess.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, and repeated the process many times until he had calmed down.

"We need to find Paim. I have a feeling she is the key in all of this," said Graham finally, coming up with a conjecture. His voice had now returned to that of his normal self.