Chapter Text
“Every second is of infinite value.” - Goethe
It had been a very long week for Veritas Ratio. So long, in fact, it had spanned thirty-two days. It took a lot to baffle a man whose knowledge and wisdom could span the cosmos and back again but this, he had to admit, was a new one.
On an unexceptional Sunday evening thirty-two days ago, something truly exceptional occurred. Ratio had locked up his lab for the day and retired to his teacher’s housing to grade some underwhelming tutee papers. The season’s first snowfall had begun on his walk home so he was sipping on some lightly spiced tea to warm himself. He was just starting to feel the cinnamon tickling at his nose a little when what could only be described as an immeasurable, earth-shattering bang caused him to drop his cup. He hardly had time to acknowledge the shock causing his cup to smash on the stone floor beneath him before his vision went dark.
Ratio felt like he was being pulled in various directions, as if a large avian had snatched him up by the ankles and taken him for a ride over the mountains. It somehow lasted both forever and a second, before he felt his feet once again meet the ground and he found himself bent over, gasping, trying to cease what felt like not only bile but his entire stomach from exiting his body.
He blinked open his eyes, his vision a little blurry, but he could make out the shapes of his shoes. Deep breaths , he told himself. You must have fallen asleep and woken with a start. He began reciting the common alphabet backwards to focus his mind and calm himself. His vision cleared a little and as he stared at the floor, he looked for the pattern of waterfowl embroidered into his slippers to ground himself. Only, he realised, he was wearing his day-to-day leather loafers which he wore throughout the colder months.
CRASH.
“Ah, Dr. Ratio! I don’t suppose you’ve had any further thoughts on showcasing your stone at one of my exhibitions?”
Ratio tried to swallow down his dizziness and straightened himself up to eye the short, stout man approaching him. This wasn’t the first time Oti Alfalfa - the finance head of Paperfold Academy - had approached him with money-hungry interests surrounding his research in which Ratio downright abhorred. However, the maroon tweed jacket Oti was donning was the exact jacket Ratio had seen him wear last week.
Rich and extravagant old Oti was never seen in the same outfit twice.
Catching his breath, Ratio glanced around. He was clearly in the academy’s main hall in which the clubs and societies were holding a fayre to exhibit their work and recruit. To the left, the Literature Club who had pinned up the cover of the latest young-adult romance, which Ratio would rather eat compost than consider actual literature. To the right, the Wubbaboo Protection Society where a young man was shouting through a brass loudhailer about the fae in question and their dwindling numbers, which Ratio would sympathise with more if the silly creatures weren’t responsible for the sticky situations they often found themselves in. (One also hid his favourite quill once, but that was beside the point).
At the very end of the hall stood the Student Council’s booth, which should have been headed by the ever-elusive Diamond but as the man was just so very important as Student Council President, he rarely made an appearance at events. Instead, the booth was headed by a young man who Ratio considered was as close to hell as you could get - both to deal with and in height. Then again, Ratio loathed most of the Student Council or the ‘Stonehearts’ as they liked to call themselves. He’d only met a handful personally (little hellspawn Opal included) but they were all so drunk with power and authority he was quite happy with the idea of not meeting any more.
This would all be a normal sight for the bi-anual society fayre if it wasn’t for the fact that Ratio had seen these exact booths with these exact set-ups a week prior.
“Dr. Ratio, are you quite alright? You look peaky, son,” huffed Oti, stroking his braided beard contemplatively.
“I- Yes. I’m fine,” Ratio said quickly. “What day is it?”
Oti barked out a laugh. “That’s unlike you! You really must be under the weather. It’s the first day of December. Also a Monday.”
If Ratio was already pale, he felt his face turning grey. “Are you sure?”
“Certainly. Days are time and time is money, son,” Oti smirked and tapped his golden wristwatch. “You know what, I’ll pester you another time. Get some rest and we’ll talk business in a couple of days.”
Ratio watched in bewilderment as Oti waddled off into the bustling crowd. He was starting to feel like his feet had never truly landed on the ground after the loud bang he’d heard only minutes prior. He pinched the skin at the back of his hand and twisted it. Hard.
Ow.
He peered at his now stinging hand as the skin slowly turned red. That was his go-to whenever he had a dream he’d much rather wake from and upon pondering it, he could never think as clearly as he was right now while dreaming. Dreams muffled his overactive mind but right now his mind was running at lightspeed and blaring alarm bells.
He had to have somehow stumbled into an occurance of cyclical time. Many would unlikely jump to this conclusion so soon but Ratio prided himself on several things. One, he had an excellent memory. Two, he was very aware of how his mind and body perceived the world. Three, in his endless pursuit of knowledge he had come across the occasional paper in the limited study of time-related anomalies. They were hard to prove as said anomalies were only recorded as being experienced by one person per case. Some claimed that after thorough trial and error they had built a magically infused device that allowed them to jump back in time a few days or even years. Some claimed the trigger was much more minute such as being thrust several seconds into the future every time they sneezed. Some simply claimed they angered a great sorcerer.
When he was a child, Ratio believed in no such fantastical thing - there was no known magic which could affect time. However, upon being introduced to the concept through a more scientific lens and perusing through various philosophy tomes over his twenty-eight years of existence, he decided he would remain open to the possibility. Nature was often ordered chaos, after all.
As the academy’s wind orchestra stationed in the corner of the hall began playing the same melody he had heard a week prior, Ratio realised that he was now living out one of these possibilities. He didn’t know which sorcerer he’d pissed off to get here but clearly, the trigger for being thrust back in time so suddenly had something to do with that large bang he’d heard on Sunday evening. He quickly decided the best way to tackle this unique issue would be to relive the first week of December exactly the way he did previously, this time being even more observant than he already usually was. He didn’t want to be unsure of what he was changing before actually approaching the incident in question.
The week played out exactly as Ratio anticipated it:-
Monday
Professor Screwllum had insisted Ratio go to the fayre in his place because apparently Ratio didn’t socialise enough, so he begrudgingly made his way around the hall’s event which came to an end at 7pm. As he was helping the other society heads clean up, he once again hid his smirk when the new transfer student tripped and threw her bright red berrypheasant skewer into Opal’s pristine, white shirt.
Tuesday
He was warned by Gepard, an academy knight in training, that more civilians outside the gates were showing interest in Ratio’s research and that he should ensure his lab was properly secured when he wasn’t present. Ratio honestly wanted to strangle whoever was leaking information to the press, his work was nowhere near completion. He had a sneaking suspicion it was that unruly twin-tailed girl he believed went by Sparkle, who left behind a trail of chaos everywhere she went. He’d seen her sniffing around the corridor where his lab was located the previous week.
Wednesday
He got S. Wolf, one of his tutees who was notorious for lock-picking her way into all sorts of mischief, to help him fully secure said lab in exchange for the afternoon off a biology lecture. Instead, he filled his tutoring session with the new transfer student who was secretly his hero, whose name he learned to be Stelle. She quickly lost her hero status when Ratio realised how hopeless she was in most subjects.
Thursday
He assisted Professor Screwllum in teaching his module Ancient Runes and Modern Tech: They have more in common than you think . He rolled his eyes once more as a fight broke out between Sugilite, a Stoneheart and Boothill, a delinquent. It resulted in the head of the academy knights, Argenti, being called to intervene and escort Boothill out of the classroom. Ratio fantasised about throwing his chalk at Sugilite’s smug face as of course a Stoneheart wouldn’t be reprimanded properly.
Friday
He was working in his lab when he was interrupted by Sunday, head of the Disciplinary Committee, who came knocking to inform him of his third noise complaint that week. Ratio didn’t have the patience to remind him that alchemy wasn’t exactly the quietest practice in the cosmos and uttered an insincere apology before sending him on his merry way.
Saturday
He was on his way to borrow one of Professor Herta’s endless tomes when he was intercepted by Jade and Topaz, two more stonehearts. They both seemed curious about the advancements of his recent work but he blanked them and stormed away - he’d had more than enough of his fill of Stonehearts that week.
Sunday
While the students and even some of the professors rested, Ratio remained cooped up in his lab. He intentionally pricked his finger on a small needle for the umteenth time before lifting his creation which he had, for now, dubbed a ‘philosopher’s stone’ - a little inside joke with himself. He watched as it glowed a soft green and felt the familiar tickle of the small wound on his finger close up. He observed how, like all previous tests, there was not even a little blot of blood remaining let alone a scar and noted his findings down. He left the lab a little past 8pm, using the extra locking enchantment S. Wolf had taught him and began the walk from the main academy to the teacher’s housing. He shivered a little as he looked up to see that winter’s first snowfall had, indeed, begun.
It was after this that Ratio did things a little differently. If he recalled correctly, it was about an hour after he got home that the blast occurred. He walked upstairs to his room, put on his embroidered slippers but kept on his coat and wrapped a woolen scarf around his neck while the kettle boiled on the hob. He made his spiced tea earlier than last time before exiting his room and stationed himself out on the balcony. From there, he could see most of the academy grounds and one of two things would happen. One, nothing would occur and he’d continue on living his life linearly and maybe write a paper or two on time related entropy when he had the chance. Two, he would see what caused the loud bang and be once again thrown back in time.
Time passed dreadfully slowly. Ratio would normally have brought something out with him to read but he needed to remain vigilant. Was anything out of place? Over the next hour he saw nothing out of the ordinary - some drunk students stumbling back to their dorms after a night in the nearby tavern, Professor Chadwick walking his white terrier and he even caught sight of an owl taking flight from a nearby tree. The snow continued to fall. Ratio checked his pocket watch for the forty-eighth time and shivered, his tea long consumed.
9.33pm.
Ratio’s head snapped up as he heard what sounded like glass shattering faintly in the distance. He squinted in the direction of the main academy building but before he could make anything out, it happened.
The academy’s windows lit up with a bright red light, instantly followed by a huge explosion sending stone, glass and dust everywhere. Ratio hardly had a second to process what was happening before everything went dark.
Darkness. Pulling. Pushing. Dizzy. The ground. My loafers.
CRASH.
“Ah, Dr. Ratio! I don’t suppose you’ve had any further thoughts on showcasing your stone at one of my exhibitions?”
Ratio blinked his blurry eyes and glanced at the poor excuse of a literature club on the left and then to the wubbaboo huggers on the right, before once again casting his gaze to the tiny hellspawn sat at the student council table at the end of the hall.
Option two, then. He’d once again gone back in time.
Ratio stood up straight a little too quickly, his stomach still lurching from his sudden flight through time and space. He fixed Oti with a glare.
“My answer is still no.”
“Of course,” chuckled the old man, stroking his beard. “I’ll convince you eventually.”
As Oti walked off, Ratio closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was time to think. What could have possibly caused that explosion? It was large enough to blow up half the academy. Was the explosion the trigger that sent him back in time? Did it kill him? No, he knew he could smell the smoke in the air but nothing physically touched him. The area of impact was just out of reach of the teacher’s housing. For the moment, the blast itself was the most logical trigger for him to go back in time.
He’d already re-lived this week perfectly once. It was time to start making alterations - he needed to change the future and stop that blast. There was no positive outcome as he fully believed that he would either continue to be thrown back in time or if the loop was discontinued then the academy would be destroyed and many students and staff would lose their lives.
He was indeed a doctor in alchemy researching under the academy’s name, as well as a teaching assistant who had close ties with Professor Screwllum. However, those credentials alone wouldn’t be enough influence to convince the dean and other higher-ups to fully evacuate without solid evidence. He’d implicate himself even further if he knew of a bomb or terror threat but wouldn’t be able to explain how he knew and he was already on thin ice from a past incident. He wasn’t even sure Professor Screwllum would believe him if he said he’d been travelling back in time. The academy may label him mad after inhaling too many alchemic fumes and confiscate his materials which he shuddered at the thought of.
Ratio shook his head, pushing his fingers up his face and running them through his hair. It’s alright, you have a week to get to the bottom of this, Ratio told himself. For now, you should look around and see what could possibly be the beginning of this. You must have been sent back to this exact moment for a reason .
Ratio took a deep breath before opening his eyes and scanning around the hall. Ridiculous literature club, even-more-ridiculous wubbaboo fanatics, loathsome Stonehearts, runes club, chess club, some singer’s fanclub, the Cosmic Witch Society (whatever that was), potions club, charmony club... They were all groups that Ratio recalled from last year’s fayre. Nothing new.
CRASH. CLANG.
“Again?!”
Ratio turned his head towards the direction of the noise. His gaze fell on a young lady with messy, grey hair and a long, black coat which had definitely seen better days. It was Stelle, the new transfer student, who would later that evening stain Opal’s silk shirt with her berrypheasant skewer and on Wednesday become one of Ratio’s tutees. She had tripped over a metal wastebasket and was on her rear, rubbing the back of her head.
It suddenly occurred to Ratio that he had heard a similar crashing noise both times that the loop reset, right before Oti sauntered over to harp on at him about an exhibition. He was so distracted with old moneybags that the very first time it happened, before he knew he was looping, he didn’t think to pay any attention to the crash. The second instance, he was a little occupied with the fact that he had just jumped back in time. This time, he was going to investigate.
Ratio marched over to Stelle who was still grimacing on the floor and held out his hand. Stelle looked up at the looming shadow and swallowed nervously. Right, he had a problem with controlling his stare (as S. Wolf loved to remind him). He concentrated on relaxing his facial muscles and ever-so-slightly tilted the sides of his lips up.
Goodness, how do people do this all the time? It’s exhausting.
Stelle’s nerves seemed to subside a little as she finally took Ratio’s hand and Ratio yanked her up.
“Dare I ask what you were doing on the floor, Stelle?” Ratio asked as he quickly snatched his hand back and discreetly shook it behind his back. Her hand definitely had something sticky on it.
“How do you know my name, sir?” asked Stelle, looking at him quickly.
Ratio bit back a small curse. He couldn’t believe he’d slipped up already in his haste. “I heard someone refer to you as Stelle recently. Am I mistaken?”
“No, sir,” Stelle shook her head and smiled. “That’s me! Damn, people are gossiping about the new girl already?”
“Perhaps,” huffed Ratio. “I don’t bother paying much attention to their drivel. Also, it’s doctor - not sir.”
Stelle’s smile grew and she laughed in a way that could only be described as a cackle. “Got it, doctor. What, you the academy nurse or something?”
Ratio felt a vein throb in his forehead. He had a similar conversation with her in the previous loops on Wednesday, only it had been in a classroom as he desperately tried to help her understand basic physics. She was willing to learn, he would give her that. As for everything else? Probably a lost cause.
“I'm sure you are teasing me. But no, I’m not a nurse. I’m a doctor in alchemy - Dr. Veritas Ratio.”
“Relax, doctor,” Stelle giggled. “I’m totally teasing! I know who you are. After all, Prof. Herta recommended your tutoring. I really need to get my grade up in physics if I want to be entered for her quantum magic classes.”
“Indeed,” Ratio rolled his eyes. “I don’t suppose you want to start today?”
“Nah, I’m looking ‘round the fayre!” Stelle stretched her arms above her head. “I’ve only been here a couple weeks, I haven’t joined a club yet!”
“Extra-curricular activities are important, but they mean nothing if you fail your classes,” Ratio said, lifting up his chin and folding his arms against his chest.
Stelle sighed. “Ugh, you’re right. Ok, not today then. Tomorrow? I think I can do tomorrow - after art class with Prof. Welt.
“Fine,” Ratio said, mentally reminding himself to be polite. “I expect to see you in the first floor tutor classroom, 2pm on the dot.”
“Goodness, you’re pushy. But yeah, I’ll be there! Thanks, doctor!”
Ratio turned away, before abruptly turning back to face her when he felt the sticky sensation still between his fingers. “How did you end up becoming one with the wastebaskets not once, but twice?”
“Ah!” Stelle clapped her hands together in delight. “First, I lost my footing and walked into it and in my shock, the gum I was chewing fell out into it!”
Ratio didn’t like where this was going. “And then?”
“Well, I was rummaging in the can to retrieve it and lost my footing again and fell on my butt. But look!” Stelle proudly held out her hand which held a small lump of light blue gum. “I got it back!”
Ratio looked on in horror as she picked off what he assumed to be a couple bits of lint before happily shoving the gum in her mouth. He quite alarmingly felt every hair on his body stand on end and quickly marched away on autopilot, heading for the nearest restroom.
He suddenly snapped back into consciousness as he was scrubbing his hands in the basin and caught sight of his pale complexion and disturbed hair in the mirror. Stelle had now lost all traces of hero status for what she’d soon do to little hellspawn Opal. Ratio concluded she was her very own brand of chaotic hellspawn.
Ratio took a few deep breaths and began reciting the common alphabet backwards once again - his go-to for when the world felt a little too much. He felt a little calmer as he was drying his hands and once again put his brain to work.
Stelle seemed to be his best lead for the moment. The first thing he heard upon looping was the crash of her tripping over the metal wastebasket. She was new to the school and likely hadn’t made many connections yet. In fact, she was also the only new person Ratio had continued to meet in every timeline - every other interaction was with people he knew or people he was at least aware of.
He slowly walked back to the main hall as he heard the wind orchestra once again play that same melody. Ratio huffed out a sigh and looked around the hall upon entering, his eyes quickly landing on the messy, grey head of hair. Stelle was conversing with Argenti who was fawning all over her, which wasn’t unusual - Argenti fawned over anything and everything in existence. He pretended to look busy, interacting with the booths but peering over to Stelle every other minute.
Over the afternoon, Stelle had met several people. She bumped into Boothill and it looked like they instantly clicked, chuckling while pointing finger guns at each other. Argenti returned, dragging a flustered Gepard in tow and introduced them to each other. At one point, Sunday approached her, tugging at her moth-bitten coat and shaking his head. Stelle only looked a little sheepish in return and shrugged. She had now stumbled into Topaz, possibly the only Stoneheart Ratio could just about stand... Only just.
Stelle seemed to be having a wonderful time with Topaz’s miniature gullinbursti whose loyalty to her was like that of a hound. Topaz was smiling down at Stelle as the pig-like creature rolled onto its back for a tummy rub. The ever-annoying Sugilite couldn’t help but interrupt the moment, barking something at Topaz before glaring down at Stelle with a hand on his hip. Stelle took no notice of his annoyance and cackled up at him, much like she’d done earlier in response to Ratio’s moody demeanor.
Another individual joined the group, slapping Topaz on the shoulder with one hand and punching Sugilite with the other. They both looked incredibly displeased. At this point, Ratio had shuffled a little closer and was able to make out the features a little better. The man had blonde hair but it could be barely seen under the black hat he donned. The fool was wearing sunglasses indoors but they had slid down his nose just enough to show piercing, green eyes peeking through.
Ah, thought Ratio. That must be Aventurine.
Ratio had never met him personally, only caught glances of the suave man from a distance. All he knew of him was that he was a Stoneheart, and therefore probably a thoroughly unpleasant person. Compared to the other Stonehearts, he was fairly unremarkable and didn’t engage in many student council duties, so Ratio knew little about him and was quite surprised to see him present at the fayre.
He watched in contemplation as Aventurine intertwined one arm with Topaz and used the other to grab Sugilite by the back of his shirt collar. Stelle laughed as he dragged them away back to the student council booth where Opal sat with a furious expression. Ratio decided he would much rather stay out of whatever scolding was about to occur and busied himself with buying an apple tart from the bakery club.
As it had happened twice before, the fayre ended by 7pm and he once again helped clean up the hall, smirking once more when Stelle ruined Opal’s shirt. She may have pushed him into a minor meltdown when she let her used, lint-covered gum touch his hand, but he at least appreciated her inept spatial awareness causing a Stoneheart some grief.
Monday turned into Tuesday and Ratio found himself having the urge to bang his head against the chalkboard in the tutoring classroom as Stelle struggled to grasp the concept of inertia.
“Stelle, I truly do not know how to simplify this any more,” Ratio groaned. He could feel a headache forming. “Objects keep doing what they’re doing until they're disrupted by another force.”
“But look,” said Stelle as she spun her pencil on the desk she was sitting at. It twirled around a few times before slowly coming to a stop. “I applied force, but it kept moving on its own and it came to a stop without any other force present.”
“We have been over this. The friction between the pencil and the desk acted as the force that brought the pencil to a standstill.”
“How does friction work again?”
Ratio dropped his chalk and hit his forehead against the chalkboard.
“Doctor, you’re going to get chalk on your hair.”
“You are getting on my hair.”
It was quiet for a few moments before Ratio, still with his head resting against the board, heard knocking, shuffling and quiet footsteps approaching behind him. “If you so much as touch me I will throw the whole damn chalkboard at you as I am not Mr. Wolf and I am not telling you the time.”
“Ahem,” said a masculine voice, one that very much didn’t belong to Stelle.
Stelle snickered as Ratio whipped his head around and practically stared holes into Gepard. “Can I help you?”
“Ah, sorry if this is a bad time,” the trainee knight said, although he didn’t look particularly bothered as to whether or not he was causing a disruption. “I wanted to inform you that civilians outside the gates have caught wind of your research, so I suggest you-”
“Yes, secure the lab, I know,” Ratio sighed as he sat down at the tutor’s desk opposite Stelle. He was so mentally exhausted from the mere two hours he’d spent with Stelle trying to drag her through the basic laws of physics that he had almost forgotten that he’d moved her tutoring session a day earlier and Tuesday was the day in which Gepard came with the warning.
“Oh, well,” Gepard said, a little taken aback. “I am glad to hear you’ve already thought through some precautions. Of course, as the academy knights, if you require any extra assistance in guarding your stone there will always be someone-”
“Available to help me at all times of the day. I will be in contact with you if necessary,” Ratio said, not looking up from the notes he’d opened at the desk. “You may be on your way.”
“...Right. Yes,” Gepard replied in bewilderment. He glanced at Stelle who only shrugged in response. Gepard shook his head slightly before turning on his heel and walking out just as quickly as he’d come in.
“You alright, doctor?” Stelle asked, stretching her arms over her desk like a listless cat.
“No,” Ratio glanced up from his notes and fixed her with a pointed glare. “I’m working out how to teach you in a way you understand.”
That was half-true. Veritas Ratio never lied, after all. But at that moment in time, the other half of his brain was planning out the rest of the week. He needed to investigate people and see who seemed suspicious. Thinking back to what he briefly saw of the explosion, it was unlikely accidental or something wrong with the academy walls themselves, as it didn’t explain the bright flash of red light that illuminated the windows right before everything went bang. He had deduced it had to be caused by a person and as much as he hated to admit it (because Argenti really got on his nerves) the academy knights did their job well in guarding the grounds. So, he wrote in his notebook:
- Accident i.e. a student practicing magic, potions, etc which lead to the explosion. Unlikely, due to the magnitude of the blast. An enchantment gone wrong wouldn’t cause such catastrophic damage.
- Intentional i.e. a student displeased with a grade they received, a professor rebelling against the lack of pay rise, a cleaner sick of scrubbing undisclosed fluorescent green goo off toilet seats, someone trying to rob the school... someone trying to rob my research? The philosopher's stone?
- Divine intervention. Highly unlikely, but then again I am currently stuck in a time loop which feels just as unlikely yet here I am.
- What was that bright red light?
Over the next few days, he somewhat stuck to his original schedule but made time to observe persons of interest. He highly doubted Argenti or Gepard were involved, but that rowdy senior Boothill that Argenti dragged around with him was a valid suspect with his constant violent threats.
Topaz and Jade also concerned him on the day that they tried to pry him for information on his current research. If the motive of the blast was to cover up a robbery, the academy only had two valuable things on campus - money and the philosopher’s stone. The stone was not yet public as he was still researching it, but information kept leaking causing prying eyes to want a closer look. The Stonehearts were rich, not in need of the academy’s wealth, so were Topaz and Jade planning to steal the stone?
Speaking of leaked information, Ratio was almost certain it was due to the resident prankster - Sparkle. No one saw much of her, in fact Ratio was unsure what she was even studying at the academy. She just popped up every now and then to provoke people or leave behind a trail of riddles that never added up.
Ratio also considered Sunday and his guard dog, Gallagher. Eighty percent of the time, where Sunday went Gallagher followed. Sunday seemed to morally get off on disciplining students for the most meager things and while Ratio was also a big fan of unruly students being reprimanded, Sunday’s antics were so petty that they got in the way of learning. ‘Your shirt’s top button isn’t done up. The creases of your trousers aren’t aligned with your shoes. You walked three steps too quickly in the hallways. You coughed during prayer. You-’
Gods, Ratio was so sick of overhearing his nonsense. He made accidental eye contact with Gallagher once or twice during his ‘observations’ only for Gallagher to smirk and shrug. The nerve. And Professor Screwllum wondered why Ratio didn’t socialise more.
Regarding socialising, he had unfortunately been spending more time with Stelle, too. He had a feeling she was the key to this puzzle but he had no idea why; it was a gut feeling and Ratio rarely did gut feelings. He was a man of logic and reason, not one to rely on the little inkling he had tickling at his stomach. Then again, if the time loop was logical, then there must have been a reason that the reset started from Stelle tripping over the wastebasket and drawing his attention.
It was now Sunday evening once again and Ratio felt like he’d lived the longest week of his life. ‘Befriending’ Stelle felt an awful lot like babysitting. She was somehow both completely inept yet had moments where potential shone through her cracks like a rare gem waiting to be cracked open, such as when he begrudgingly let her into his lab and she deciphered the runes laying at his work station rather quickly. However, she’d then ruin it all by asking him whether if she threw Topaz’s gullinbursti high enough and hard enough into the sky, would it fly?
As he locked up the lab for the evening, he turned to Stelle who had been accompanying him. “I believe it’s going to snow soon. I’m rather a fan of snow, so I’m going to wait around the main grounds a little longer. Feel free to leave without me.”
“What? No way!” beamed Stelle. “No way am I letting you boast about being the one to see winter’s first snowfall!”
“It’s not a competition,” Ratio sighed.
But this was the outcome he wanted. He hadn’t gotten any closer to discovering what caused the blast. If he could do it his way, he’d lock all his suspects in a room one-on-one with him, but then he’d probably get himself sacked the second he let a traumatised soul flee. If the blast was indeed going to occur again, he wanted to see it up close and personal and he wanted Stelle to remain nearby so he could keep an eye on her. A part of him felt guilty for dragging her into danger but from a cerebral point of view, this version of Stelle would cease to exist and upon resetting, the Stelle he would meet at the fayre on Monday would have no recollection of the incident.
They sat on a bench together, thankfully a few feet apart, from what Ratio concluded was just within the blast range. The snow had begun and Ratio watched in disdain as Stelle stuck her tongue right out in hope to catch a snowflake on it.
“Ah! Cold!”
“Why, yes, Stelle. The frozen water crystals are cold.”
Another half hour passed and Ratio kept apprehensively checking his pocket watch. Stelle seemed to notice but she didn’t bother questioning it, which Ratio appreciated. It was nearing 9.33pm when Ratio almost felt the urge to warn Stelle, but he was startled when she jumped up off the bench and ran forward towards a hedge.
“Look, doctor! It’s a fox!”
Ratio was about to yell at her to get back when he once again saw the bright, red light illuminating most of the academy windows.
“Ste-!”
The blast burst loudly out of the academy, shattering the windows and sending debris of stone and glass flying in all directions. Ratio hadn’t noticed anything different upon being closer to it, only the heat on his face from the fiery cloud that erupted into the sky. His ears rang as he stood up, coughing a little as some dust had already reached his lungs.
But... his vision had yet to fade to black.
Were there going to be no more resets? Had he relied on a theory that was never concrete to begin with? Had he just let the region’s second-best academy explode along with the poor souls who may have still been in the main building?
Ratio swallowed down his panic as he looked around in the dusty air for Stelle. It only took him a few shaky steps forward before he located her a few feet in front of him where she’d run to apparently see a fox. He stumbled over and knelt down. She was on her side but she looked relatively unharmed.
That was until Ratio gently turned her onto her back. There were shards of glass littered across her torso, likely shot into her at god-knows-what speed by the force of the blast. She was still alive, breathing heavily with her face scrunched up in pain. Ratio wished he had the stone with him. He knew first aid and basic healing magic, but these wounds were deep and she was losing a lot of blood - it was pooling out onto the snowy floor beneath them.
“Doctor...” she rasped.
Ratio was holding her in his arms now. He’d never felt so lost. He’d treated people for injuries before, some pretty grotesque ones too, but nothing this serious. He was not blessed with a talent in healing magic. That’s the entire reason he’d been working for years to create the philosopher’s stone, he could at least use his brain to create a tool to help people, to heal people, to help society and maybe finally be accepted to work for his first academy of choice. But the stone was somewhere out of reach and now a young lady he’d put in danger was dying in his arms, and the timeline wasn’t resetting. Gods, why wasn’t the timeline resetting?
“D-Dr. Ratio,” Stelle coughed, a little bit of blood running from her lips. “It’s...ok.”
Ratio didn’t have time to answer. Her head rolled to the side, her hooded and teary yellow eyes now unseeing.
She was gone.
Darkness. Pulling. Pushing. Dizzy. The ground. My loafers.
CRASH.
“Ah, Dr. Ratio! I don’t suppose you’ve had any further thoughts on showcasing your stone at one of my exhibitions?”
Ratio hunched over, panting, suddenly much warmer yet somehow feeling a chill run down his spine. His head snapped into the vague direction of the crashing sound and he ran away from Oti without a single word. He turned a corner around the bakery booth and skidded to a halt when he reached the other side.
There was Stelle, bent over the stupid wastebasket, searching for her stupid gum and before Ratio could open his mouth she indeed lost her footing and fell onto her stupid rear.
“Again?!” she cried, rubbing her head.
Ratio looked down at her as it finally dawned on him.
Stelle was the trigger. Stelle’s death threw him back in time.
At least he gained something from that horrific sight. He could still clearly see Stelle’s foggy eyes, but here she was sprawled out on the floor and very much alive.
“I would help you up but I fear you’ll get your grisly, used gum on me.”
Stelle opened her eyes and looked up at him in slight shock before breaking out into a smile. “Wow, it’s the Dr. Ratio, in the flesh, not offering to help a maiden up out of her pickle.”
Ratio actually puffed some air out of his nose in amusement. So she did know my name .
“It’s a pickle I would rather not be a part of,” Ratio said. He put his hands in his pockets and started to walk away.
“Hey, wait! I need to talk to you! Professor Herta said-”
“Yes, yes, Stelle. You require physics tutoring. Be at the tutoring classroom tomorrow at 2pm on the dot.”
“Wait, how’d you know my name? Oi!”
Ratio ignored her but really he just needed to excuse himself for a few minutes. He was still a little (well, a lot) shaken from seeing the very girl he just talked to laying dead in his arms. He leaned against a wall, took some deep breaths and started reciting the common alphabet backwards. It was once again time to think.
Stelle’s death was the trigger for this time loop. He knew she must have been important as her ridiculous gum and wastebasket antics were the first thing he heard after every reset. While he’d confirmed that the blast itself was not the trigger, it was certainly related. The previous two resets must have been caused when Stelle was killed in the explosion - there’s no other explanation that made sense. They simply had to be related.
But now the question was, why on earth was Stelle in the main academy building long after most students and even professors had retired for the night? The only reason she hadn’t been in the building and died instantly in the most recent explosion was because Ratio had begrudgingly become acquainted with her over the week and coaxed her to sit outside in the snow with him. He was still swallowing down the guilt for that - he could have taken her somewhere safe. However, at least the Stelle here and now appeared to have no memories of the past week.
Only Ratio had to bear the burden.
The next week was going similarly to the previous week Ratio had lived. He wanted to tear his own hair out as he tutored Stelle, and began to grow tired of all the repeated conversations he was having with the likes of Gepard and Professor Screwllum. The main difference was he tried to pry more information out of his suspects, who all gave him little to go on.
That was until a very drastic difference occurred.
On Friday, he’d heard from Argenti that Boothill was going on a hike. This was the day after Boothill was escorted out of the classroom for getting into a fight with Sugilite and Ratio wondered if Boothill may be planning something in some way of revenge, away from the watchful eyes of the academy.
While Ratio kept up with his fitness, Stelle was clearly not built for climbing the mountain behind the academy. She’d insisted on coming and therefore, instead of the nature around him, the trees rustling and the birds chirping, all he could hear was Stelle’s borderline-asthmatic wheezing behind him. She had just asked for her third break when Ratio lost his patience.
“I told you not to come! I have important business to attend to and you are, quite frankly, getting in the way,” he hissed.
Stelle finished gulping down a huge bottle of water before spluttering out, “You won’t even tell me what this ‘ business’ is! I thought I could pay you back for the tutoring by carrying your stuff!”
“Stelle,” Ratio breathed out slowly. He gestured to the second satchel he was carrying. “I am carrying your things.”
“Fine! Ok! Whatever!” Stelle marched off in a temper.
Ratio was left utterly perplexed. Was he dealing with a toddler in a grown woman’s body? What right did she have to throw a tantrum? He had told her not to accompany him and she didn’t listen. He had told her not to pack so many things and she didn’t listen. What use was a wooden shoe brush, an entire pack of hairpins and a tin of soup on a three hour hike?!
As Ratio was seeing red and mentally ranting, he suddenly heard a loud skid followed by a sharp shriek. He glanced over to where Stelle had just been, only to see she had vanished. He then realised in slight horror that she had been marching in the direction of a steep cliff.
“Oh, for-”
Darkness. Pulling. Pushing. Dizzy. The ground. My loafers.
CRASH.
“Ah, Dr. Ratio! I don’t suppose you’ve had any further thoughts on showcasing your stone at one of my exhibitions?”
“-fuck’s sake.”
“I beg your pardon?” said a startled Oti.
“You heard me,” hissed a dizzy Ratio.
He stumbled away, over to where he knew that idiotic woman was. Indeed, she was on the ground, about to further fall over.
“You!” he shouted to get Stelle’s attention, pointing at her. She jumped at the sudden boom of Ratio’s voice and as prophesied, fell over the wastebasket. “Tutoring tomorrow. 2pm. Don’t you dare be late.”
“Ow! I- Uh, y-yes? Ok?!”
He heard her stuttering behind him as he walked away but he feared he would say something dreadful if he remained in her presence.
Thankfully, Ratio had cooled off a bit by the following day and felt a little guilty as a sheepish Stelle arrived at her tutoring session. He let her in and tried not to lose the will to live as he tried again and again to drill physics into her head.
Ratio realised he would have to be a lot more sneaky with his investigation if he wanted Stelle to stay out of harm’s way. Even if she were to die at the end of the week, every second counted and he needed the full week to collect every little piece of the puzzle he could.
This was a lot harder than he thought. ‘Everything that can go wrong, will’ was the saying and Ratio had never felt it harder than the last few days he’d lived through. It was as if the moment he had discovered that Stelle was the trigger, she had found it harder to keep herself alive than a newborn kitten.
In one loop, after two days, Stelle followed Ratio out into the forest below the mountains where he’d watched Jade walk into, followed by Topaz ten minutes later. He supposed that if he caught them in the act of plotting something, he would have enough reason to go to the higher ups with his concern about the upcoming explosion.
As he was creeping across the path he believed they’d taken, trying not to step on any twigs and bring attention to himself, he heard a pathetic little yelp behind him. He whipped his head around to find Stelle, who had turned white as a ghost, with a snake’s jaws attached to her leg. She took in two, large gulps of air before she went very still and slumped over.
Darkness. Pulling. Pushing. Dizzy. The ground. My loafers. Note to self: Never have skin exposed when entering the forest.
Three days into the next loop, he was in his lab working out if there was any way to securely transport the stone so he could have it on him in case of emergencies - such as a silly girl trekking her bare legs through a forest, inviting all venomous creatures to take a bite.
He was so hyper-focused on his task that he did not notice the silly girl in question had picked up a glistening purple bottle and was staring at it in awe, when Sunday barged in (a day early, might Ratio add) to complain about the noise Ratio’s tests were making. Stelle jumped at the sudden intrusion, causing her to drop what she didn’t know was a highly toxic substance, directly on the ground below her. A cloud of deep purple smoke shot up in the air and Ratio simply put his head in his hands. He heard Sunday’s panicked waffle and the thud that Stelle’s body made as it hit the ground.
Darkness. Pulling. Pushing. Dizzy. The ground. My loafers. Note to self: Hide any hazardous lab materials.
The next loop didn’t even last more than a day. Ratio sat at his tutoring desk, staring into space, trying not to bond with Stelle as he attempted to teach her like he had the other times. His body may have been reset every time, but his mind was withering - he was exhausted . This was the thirty-first day he’d spent in this situation yet somehow it felt like ten years.
He didn’t notice that a bored Stelle had crawled into the corner, exclaiming something about finding an interesting snack out of the classroom’s wastebasket and questioning why anyone would throw away something still perfectly good to eat.
It was, in fact, not perfectly good to eat.
Darkness. Pulling. Pushing. Dizzy. The ground. My loafers. Note to self: Lock Stelle up somewhere for the next week. She’ll be fine as long as she has food, water and some physics textbooks which will take her aeons to read.
CRASH.
“Ah, Dr. Ratio! I don’t suppose you’ve had any further thoughts on-”
“No,” groaned Ratio, massaging his temples. “Just...no.”
“Are you certain?” Oti asked, stroking his beard. “Because I think it would be really good for-”
“Ratio~!”
Ratio snapped out of his fatigued daze in an instance. That was a voice he absolutely did not recognise. A voice he had never heard in his life, let alone a voice he had heard at any point during all the loops he’d been through. He looked around, trying to find the source.
“Hey, Dr. Ratio! Over here!”
He hardly had a chance to comprehend what, or rather, who was running in his direction before it felt like the air had been knocked out of his lungs. Had he been struck? Attacked by someone? Had Stelle regained memories of previous loops and come for revenge over the cliff incident?
Ratio looked down in bewilderment to see not grey hair, but blonde. And the blonde person in question was...hugging him? Ratio couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hugged, it must have been when he was still a child. He didn’t remember anyone shorter than him ever hugging him before. His arms were awkwardly raised in the air as if he were surrendering. Oti was staring. Actually, a few people were staring.
“Oi,” he hissed, but mortifyingly it came out as more of a squeak. “Let go. ”
The person hugging him giggled before tilting their head up. Ratio gasped softly.
Blond hair. Pink-tinted shades. A black hat on the floor behind them. Bright green- No, wait...blue and purple and pink eyes? Despite the strikingly different eye colour, there was no doubt about it.
“Av...enturine?”
“The very one!” Aventurine chirped with a blinding smile and squeezed Ratio tighter.
If the air hadn’t already been fully knocked out of his body, then it had now. There was no doubt about it, Aventurine of the Ten Stonehearts was hugging him like a gleeful little kid.
Ratio felt nauseous. Not only was he being quite intensely touched by a stranger, but that stranger was a Stoneheart, and this had never happened. Not one... Not one, single reset had anything changed except for things which Ratio himself instigated.
Gods above, what on earth am I meant to do with this variable?!