Actor's Anteroom: Back in Black

Good evening, Warmaster.

I didn't expect to come back either, yeah, but here we are. Anyway, the cat instructed me to brief you about my project. I'd give you a more detailed written report, but some jackass stole all my notes. Probably the same one that did me in there.

Sorry, erm, let's see. So, in the beginning, the world was one. It stemmed from itself and light appeared out of the dark. Such was the nature of the world, that it was perfect enough to even create itself.

It was also perfect enough to destroy itself, for all things are only ultimately realized in death, and the world was no exception. As is above, so is below, et cetera.

No, I am totally going somewhere with this. It's all about universal metaphysics. Have you read the Lecticio Divinatus, Asami?

Alright. I'm going to skip a bunch of it, there is the part at the start about how the world was before the Lady appeared. It talks about the Dark, and so. This is a bit confusing to sciencistic interpretation of the text, since it's heavily disputable what the Dark really is. The Fourtenth will tell you that Witches are products of it, but if that's the case, the Dark cannot represent the heat death of the universe. Still with me?

I mean that Witches being born is like a loophole in the second law of thermodynamics. The Incubators make Magical Girls for that purpose. Right, you know that. The Dark is supposed to be both it and the cold that will eventually set itself upon the universe, at least according to Pius.

In my opinion, this paradox can be resolved with a sort of ideological crutch: the Dark represents Witching out. The Dark is inside the human psyche. In short, the Blessed Lady's opponent was the fallibility of human nature itself. To fix it, she would have to remake mankind into something it normally isn't, create a world where mistakes either aren't allowed, or aren't punished. Do you know roughly what the Immaterium is?

That's pretty much right. But regular humans don't really do much to it, you need something like a Witch to really shake it up. Now, here is where the idea of mine started.

A certain scientific theory, a really out there one, states that through quantum states of the brain, every sapient being is connected to their other selves on subconscious level. That's pretty romantic, right? You don't even need magic to make it make sense. Your soul would be a string, a string of karma, leading from this world to a higher plane, and that would be the forever sought secret behind the nature of human consciousnes feeling so overwhelming. It lets you feel like you are much more than you appear to be, but also doesn't make you too spiffy with delusions of particular importance.

For every mistake that you have made, there allegedly exists a you that didn't make it, and you are connected. What really makes us what we are according to this theory, then, are the mistakes that we do every time. This way, they become much heavier in meaning. In fact, from this point of perspective, every mistake you could possibly make looks like nothing. Just pebbles on the road of your quantum existence.

So, flipping it around, if the Lady sought to create a world that would not allow or punish mistakes, all she would need would be to create a world that is unaffected by karma. A higher plane for souls to exist on, maybe. This theoretical plane of existence we will call the Law of Cycles, since that's the name of the Lady's new universal order.

The Law of Cycles, in fact, is much like that whole theory about soul strings, except we would be talking about the universe's own soul. It is the string of common law that connects many worlds.

Oh, they talk about the Law of Cycles all the way in the Book of the Maiden. I guess you didn't finish it.

The vocabulary definition of 'Law of Cycles' would be, uh, a structure that fairy tales must adhere to. It's pretty applicable to what we do, fight monsters and become them eventually. Simply, the Law of Cycles are a bunch of rules that the Lady laid out for Magical Girls. Not in the sense of how they should live like the ten commandments or anything, more in the sense of how they actually work. The first law is, that Magical Girls shall be free of the Dark.

Ah, right, you didn't read the last book. The point is that to me, that actually sounds like a really creepy world to live in. You'd know.

Hit the nail on the head. Pius has done his best to remove all the implications of this from the book, but I am pretty sure this 'apocryphal' part is canon, or nothing would make sense. We turn into Witches, so the law has been broken since, and so the Dark consumes us still. I sure do feel it under my skin right now. Jesus freed us of sin too, and I just sinned half an hour ago. They both tried. Anyway, this is where it gets REALLY interesting.

You see, something being broken or useless doesn't mean it's truly gone. Like a hymen, hahaha. Well, to a sciencist, the Law of Cycles is obviously detectable in the world right now, as a certain phenomenon in nature that makes no sense scientifically: Witching out.

When it happens, the second law of thermodynamics is broken, which Incubators claim is the result of their own set-up. I should not get into how this could possibly be done, but energy is being extracted from souls, which are not following the laws of physics to begin with, especially if we really get into the quantum stuff I talked about before. It of course rises some questions humans should find alarming, especially if the energy providable by the extraplanar disappears from THERE, and especially considering that certain people are supposedly fated to become a magical girls. How long could such a resource last if the worlds are infinite and its reserves are not?

First, the second law of thermodynamics is broken, which Incubators claim is the result of their own set-up. I should not get into how this could possibly be done, but energy is being extracted from souls, which are not following the laws of physics to begin with. It of course rises some questions humans should find alarming, especially if the energy providable by the extraplanar , and especially considering that certain people are supposedly fated to become a magical girls. How long could such a resource last if the worlds are infinite and its reserves are not?

If it is not finite, hence the Incubators having no issues exploiting it so, it implies some sort of a divine power present in our soul, that of a creator god, capable of shaping reality at will. Perhaps all of us have it, but even one would be enough.

So, it's all well and good if we were talking theoretical physics and identity politics, but what if we could interact with the Law? After all, the very tale that the term comes from, the Tome of the Lady, specifies that she altered the law. After what I explained, could we do the same? Change the way that magical girls work forever? Exploit knowing it to alleviate the downsides somehow? That's more likely what her actions stand for, I think.

So, to take care of this universal order and enforce it, there would have to be, let us say, another dimension, in which "The Blessed Lady", and "The First Knight" reside. Don't know about the third one, but the Shieldmaiden is supposed to be gone from there for sure. It's like the Immaterium in that it can be overlaid over the mortal world and alter it. But it is not. Still follow?

There have been many experiments in regards to this, of course. Trying to map the area of a witch-out to see how exactly the whole setting up a Barrier works should also tell us if something else happened. Like a pink-haired winged messiah coming down from heaven and claiming the soul. Some girls claimed that they saw the Lady right before death, but, as for scientific proof, there is none. If there is a distortion, I don't think it's measurable. It might well exist outside of our perception, outside of space, outside of time. Wouldn't be surprising.

Ah, that's simple. Just because something is broken doesn't mean it's gone. I imagine, according to all the 'heretical' texts I went through, that the Lady is indeed still trying to save our souls, but she can't, or the circumastances for doing so are extremely specific. Maybe there's some twist on it like becoming a Witch being the salvation she gives all along, and we are too dumb to understand.

Back again. If there is a distortion, I thought, how could we interact with it? Wouldn't a being outside of our understanding like a Witch have the easiest time doing so? And so I went, talked to a mental magic expert, and together we tried to 'program' my Witch to perform a particular task - enter the Law of Cycles, at least briefly. As an outside agent, not as one whom it applies to. That takes us to the Lance of Ophelia.

Why take it, huh. That's a good question. It could screw all of existence over, so I guess this wasn't quite the exemplary sciencist behavior of me. Me am play gods and all that. But, can't you sympathetize?

It's blatantly obvious that those four bitches - sorry, I got a bit too passionate, Warmaster. These four goddesses simply don't care. They are far more powerful than we can imagine, and by my reckoning, thet are doing NOTHING to fix this mess. None of them have ever come on Earth, even if they are supposed to still be around, watching over us. That, to me, seems sadistic. Even if the apocryphal heresy actually happened - and the Lady was barred access to this domain, as would the knights, if the world now belongs to the Devil, then she isn't taking good care of it at all.

All is not right with the world. The whole existence is littered with anomalies. Magical girls make 'clever' wishes and delete themselves and others from existence, and make nonsencial prophecies about things that never happened, and break the laws of physics. As a sciencist, to study this mess of a world from bottom up is infuriating. I just want the same thing as the Blessed Lady had wanted in the end, Warmaster. To preserve this world and restore its order.

That's why I have, half a year ago, breached a gap across worlds as a Magical Girl was becoming a Witch under my hands, and tore the pin that held the bloodstained laws of this world in their place from it's resting spot. The Lance of Ophelia is now sealed within her, and she is still running around. I made sure to preserve her in the ritual. As a Hayades.

Well, yes, that's exactly what I mean. We botched up the ending a bit with Yazaki, but that's nothing you can't fix. Don't you want the lance, Warmaster? The blood of saints is said to recover Witch flesh. It's true, I've seen the Hayades bearing it recover a bit of skin, right before gutting me. That kind of a thing could even help Kazumi. Won't you give me some intel, and a few squads, and -

Oh, well. I tried.

I'm fully aware that there is knowledge, held by our very own Officio, that could help me here, but you don't have to rub it in like that. Call me misguided when I'm just doing my best. Maybe if you let me know all the things relevant to the topic of my research from the start, I would have gone about it differently. Really makes me think.

Well, no, I'm a sciencist. Pretty much an atheist if I didn't >know< that gods exist. You can call me a gnostic. All of this faith stuff becomes much simpler once you are the disbelieving Thomas but Jesus actually lets you touch his wound, so to speak. Our 'Jesus' is real, but he doesn't let us do that. Therin lies the problem.

Since you ask like that, if the Blood Knight DOES come to take it back, I'll just be glad. That would prove me wrong, it would mean she actually visits this world. Scientists are glad when they're proven wrong, you know? You could say that every experiment, by nature, is a taunt to the natural order. Either we accomplish something, or we learn something.

Wait, what do you mean a staple gun across my face? I've just done what the Incubtor wanted me to. You're gonna punish me for that? He's gonna have you. He needs me for this.

What are you gonna do, call in that Culexus from behind the door? Goddammit Asami, this is not -