But then what caused the 0 to become a 1 and a -1? And where did the larger system that allows such an action to happen come from?
Maybe the nature of actual nothingness is to split into various somethings. It may be inherent; axiomatic.
The most fundamental rule: There can not be nothing, but all the things that are not nothing cannot add up to more than nothing.
Then there was 1 and -1, and within each was an entire universe. But the sum total of both of these universes was not more or less than that which came before.
And then the universes of 1 and -1 combined their power and reformed, as zero.
It's like the monthly accounts, all the T diagrams must end up balancing each other out or you've missed something. Accountants are black holes, bringing the universe back into the perfect balance of eventual, and inevitable, nothingness.