The hour of reckoning was upon the land. The girl in white, standing, or rather barely just; frail, weak, yet still holding on to her determination. Opposite her, an almost godly entity. The girl in black, the eye of the storm of conflict. The accursed knowledge of the countless torture and suffering of others gathered with the conduit that is Tairitsu; but now she no longer thinks of each individual memory, each unique fragment of someone else’s life; she now views this mess as a gathered whole, a burden to be dissipated upon the only other person present. And this proves to be even more crucial to her because of the vision. “Kill Hikari, or she will kill you.”

But doesn’t this make you wonder? The impure and grim memories may have coalesced into cruel glass shards at her command, but deep down, does one have to act this way upon an innocent, just because they are capable of it? While Tairitsu has gathered countless conflicts, the way she now acts is unrelated to this collection of memories. It appears almost as if, in trying to rid this world of conflict, she herself has transformed into another conflict upon this realm. Conflict begets more conflict; undoubtedly her journey’s crosspath with such memories would also change her as a person. But if her ruthless murdering is beyond her conscience, can she still be saved? Or perhaps, this dangerous conflict can act as the conduit for another… entity to counterbalance.

Tairitsu looked down upon the pitiful figure. The former had at least a thousand fragments swarming around her in a giant tempest; the latter had none. The time for Tairitsu to gain the upper hand has long passed; now it was the time for her to end this unpleasant situation. Unpleasant, she calls it, yet she feels a sort of twisted satisfaction upon aiming her shards at the girl in white.

But before she could send the shards flying through Hikari’s heart, the sky started to darken. Or rather, light was being drained from the world of Arcaea. Both girls turned to observe the source of this anomaly; something unlike which they have ever seen before.

Where the skies had seemed infinitely out of reach for them, now appeared like nothing more than the tops of tents, holding together a false reality. And as the weak flaps of material struggled to contain the anomaly, a large jagged gash split the skies apart, tearing it open. From within the gash nothing could be observed, nothing but eternal darkness. The blackest of black, the seemingly formless darkness began to spread from the anomalous source, wider, and wider.

Even Tairitsu’s torrents of sorrow paled in comparison to this otherworldly material; it was not made of Arcaea, nor of the elements of their world. The darkness spread effortlessly through the air, faster than any of the Arcaea, yet also more silent than any of them.

While earlier on Tairitsu had held the unrivalled title as the absolute manifestation of chaos, conflict and destruction, it was soon made clear that here was a being made of even purer chaos. As Tairitsu received the power that transformed her into a godlike tempest, she did not lose her colour; but any radiance of blue on her could not be found at all within the invasive energy; it was a mass of black void that allowed no light to escape. It also did not destroy, like Tairitsu with Hikari; it instead passed through the terrain and environment, transforming all in contact with the energy into the same darkness it started with. The air, the ground, the Arcaea; nothing was destroyed, at least not in the matter that Tairitsu knew of; instead, they were taken. Consumed. Their wills, if they possessed any, controlled by this unknown force.

The darkness, chaotic as it is, did not spread conflict; in fact it did not radiate any emotions or memories at all. Tairitsu in her current form could feel conflict, be it in her memories or in others’ through the Arcaea; but she could not feel any conflict from the being that now emerged from the dimensional tear. No grief, no anguish. The giant ungodly face, the final object to emerge from within the tear, was unreactive, unfeeling; it stared down upon the girls blankly and fixedly, unhalting in spreading its energy further across the realm.

For the first time, the power of conflict did not hold the edge over the world of Arcaea; instead the dimensional invader was in control. Tairitsu, who thought she had lost all worldly emotions, found herself beginning to worry. To fear. To know that the shards of memories that formed the impenetrable storm around her, no longer seemed to serve in protecting her. The shards she sent flying at the being, as she had done with Hikari, were simply coated with the darkness upon contact and consumed; there was no way of halting the spread of the energy with physical means.

However Tairitsu shall soon witness the only way that stopped this aberration from further consuming the land: Hikari. The girl was not struggling, and neither was she. Both found the being to be so anomalous they could not bring themselves to do anything other than look upon the scale of its consumption. And Tairitsu could only look on, a helpless observer, as the face descended upon the still unmoving Hikari.

Right there and then, Tairitsu’s goals would be fulfilled. Her adversary, her opposition, was gone before she even had to make the move and bring forth her death. So why then, did she fear for the girl in white, as darkness began creeping up her legs? Why did she not feel the same arrogant scorn upon the defeat of her rival as she did before? Was it because the foreign darkness had now overtaken Hikari’s entire lower body? Was it because she could no longer feel Hikari’s emotions as more and more of her became shrouded in darkness? And where did the strong surge of conflict in her heart come from, when she witnessed Hikari close her eyes and collapse to the ground, her entire form now the same pitch black as the dimensional being?

Perhaps it was because Hikari did not truly die. The girl, once in white, now in even more chaotic darkness than the embodiment of conflict, slowly rose from the ground; not standing as before, but hovering in the air. Her eyes were closed, but Tairitsu could no longer sense any remnants of the previous Hikari within the anomaly before her; the Hikari she knew had been fused into the coldness of the being. Within her Tairitsu felt no sounds of emotion - no desperation, no hope, no joy, no grief. The Hikari was as still and emotionless as the void.

The Hikari opened her eyes and gazed upon the girl who had tried to murder her earlier. Earlier, in this time, in the time before that, and in all the times before those. There was no contempt in her gaze; it was but a calm stare. Behind the darkened eyes, Tairitsu could sense the twisted desire for balance. For true resolution of conflict. For Hikari not to suffer for eternity at her hands, for her not to repeat her timelines so unfairly dying to a girl with unfairly-gained powers. And in order for this balance to be realised, Tairitsu must not only lose her upper hand; the suffering she brought upon Hikari must also be reciprocated.

Never before had Tairitsu felt such pure, chaotic conflict coming from whom once was a being of light - cruel, twisted justice and the strong stinging emotion despite there appearing to only be the lack thereof. And never before had she felt the sharp pain of a thousand shattering glass shards - her Arcaea were being driven into her body by a force from the dark being, each point drawing fresh blood as it pressed into her skin. The Hikari was not in contact with her, but the otherworldly darkness acted upon her all the same; she could no longer control her Arcaea, the loyal memories that were by her side all this time, her only companions, lost to her adversary.

And it was amidst the physical excruciating pain of injury that Tairitsu found herself reflecting upon the world. The truths of this world, presented to her through the Arcaea. Yet these memories had only kept her trapped within this world, and here was a being from another world, tearing away the seams of this one. For once, she began to realise actual truth; she began to feel the memories were no longer as important to her as they were before. She could not recall any memories of her own as the pain worsened; thus she realised that all this while she had been living under the memories of others, but never her own. I was not truly myself this whole time, she realised. How meaningless those conflicted memories seemed to her now, when she could not call upon or utilise them in any way. And how meaningless and unnecessary her attempts to kill Hikari had become to her. On the verge of her own death, Tairitsu was doing what she previously did not even imagine was possible - she was feeling for Hikari, and she was finally thinking for herself. Perhaps the vision was right all this while, she smiled weakly to herself. Hikari was destroying her now, and she could do nothing but watch her dress become more bloodstained. The time for Tairitsu to gain the upper hand has passed; now it was time for her end, for her redemption of making the mistake of disturbing the balance of the world with conflict.

Tairitsu awoke to face darkness. The girl did not know where she was. She found herself grasping at the idea that she was in the afterlife. But she felt that no, she was still alive. Against all odds, she had lived. She was once again hearing the sounds of the memories. Memories of a distant place, where she had never been. However this time, the sounds did not appear to be coming from glass. She heard the engines of cars. The chirping of birds. These sounds she had never experienced in the flesh before, yet here she was, hearing them near her, not from glass shards, not from memories but from actual life, from wherever she was.
Then Tairitsu realised her eyes were closed. Being too fatigued to open them initially, she slowly and weakly opened them. She looked on at a room; a room, that which she had never physically been in before, yet the existence she had known of through the memories. She also felt herself cushioned upon something soft; a bed. Another item that she had never been on before. She tried putting her arms beneath herself to prop herself up, but the pain from the wounds were real; she could not manage the action yet.